With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales -- a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perrault's original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenet's sensuous Belle Époque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from Baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism, to bring its story to colourful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales -- a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perrault's original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenet's sensuous Belle Époque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from Baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism, to bring its story to colourful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety.