THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY OF MUSIC
IN COLLABORATION WITH
DESIGN FOR STAGE AND SCREEN AT IADT, DUN LAOGHAIRE
PRESENT
Postcard from Morocco
and
Cendrillon
4th - 9th March
Project Arts Centre
Postcard from Morocco
A group of strangers find themselves waiting together in a train station, apparently on their way to an undisclosed destination. They each carry a personal item — a hand mirror, a cake box, a hat box, a piece of old luggage, a paint box, a shoe sample kit and a cornet case — that is significant to them. They are all seeking an escape, and in this absurdist setting, fantasy and fear are never very far away.
Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco, a surrealistic chamber opera with a libretto by John Donahue, premiered in 1971 in Minneapolis and was a huge success. In one-act and with no linear plot, the opera asks us to ponder and embrace the absurdity of life. Hailed as “a remarkable work” by The Washington Post and “A strange and often beautiful evening of theatre!” by The New York Times, this is its Irish première.
Cendrillon
Pauline Viardot created her version of Cinderella, a comic opera in three tableaux for seven solo singers, chorus and piano, to her own libretto, and premiered it in April 1904 in her Paris salon when she was 84 years old.
Viardot, one of the most celebrated singers of her generation, made her debut as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello in London in 1839 at 17 years. During her stellar operatic career, she inspired composers like Saint-Saëns and Gounod to write and dedicate roles to her. She studied piano with Franz Liszt and played piano duets with Clara Schumann.
As a singer and composer, Pauline Viardot was at the centre of artistic life in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century. She wrote over 100 songs, including transcriptions of Chopin’s 12 mazurkas, four operettas and her opera Cendrillon. Taking the lead from Viardot’s salon setting, our production of Cendrillon brings a group of performers together in the same space to tell the well-known story with some modern twists and unexpected turns!
