The Packard Humanities Institute and Opera San José pre­sent the Amer­i­can pre­miere (and world pre­miere of En­glish lan­guage ver­sion) of 12-year-old com­pos­er, vi­o­lin­ist, and pi­a­nist Alma Deutscher's o­pe­ra Cin­der­el­la, webcast live from San Jose, Cal­i­for­ni­a. In her sec­ond o­pe­ra, Deutscher reimagines the fa­mil­i­ar and be­lov­ed fairy-tale, cre­at­ing a live­ly com­ic o­pe­ra that fea­tures the com­pos­er her­self play­ing the vi­o­lin, pi­a­no, and or­gan. This lav­ish pro­duc­tion of Alma Deutscher’s Cin­der­el­la is the A­mer­i­can pre­miere (and world pre­miere of En­glish lan­guage ver­sion) with large or­ches­tra, choir and danc­ers. Alma has ex­tend­ed and ex­pand­ed the mu­sic for it. It is led by re­nowned Brit­ish con­duc­tor jane Glov­er.

Alma Deutscher's o­pe­ra is based on the fair­y tale, but mu­sic it­self has be­come the cen­tral theme of the sto­ry. The set­ting is an o­pe­ra com­pa­ny run by the step-moth­er, who in­her­it­ed it from Cin­der­el­la’s fa­ther when he died. Cin­der­el­la her­self is a com­pos­er with beau­ti­ful mel­o­dies spring­ing in­to her head, but her new fam­i­ly treats her with con­tempt, es­pe­cial­ly the step-sis­ters, who are vain would-be di­vas. The prince is a po­et, and the sto­ry ends with the Prince search­ing for the lost mel­o­dy for his po­em (ra­ther than a lost slip­per).

Once up­on a time, in the King­dom of Transylvanian, there lived a girl called Cin­der­el­la. Her moth­er died when she was young, and she was brought up by her lov­ing fa­ther, the man­ag­er of the lit­tle o­pe­ra house at the edge of Brasslichmei, the cap­i­tal.

Cin­der­el­la would of­ten en­ter­tain her fa­ther by sing­ing him the beau­ti­ful mel­o­dies that sprang in­to her head. Some years lat­er, her fa­ther mar­ried a­gain, an ag­ing prima don­na with two daugh­ters of her own, Gri­sel­da and Zibaldona. When Cin­der­el­la’s fa­ther died, Cin­der­el­la’s step-moth­er took o­ver the o­pe­ra com­pa­ny, and eve­ry­thing changed...

Few twelve-year-olds are gift­ed as Alma Deut­scher. An al­ready-ex­pe­ri­enced so­lo­ist on the pi­a­no and vi­o­lin, a budd­ing com­pos­er with nu­mer­ous con­cer­tos and cham­ber works to her name, the young mu­si­cian has cap­tured the hearts of au­di­enc­es, mu­sic crit­ics, and lead­ing art­ists of the mu­si­cal world (a­mong them Sir Simon Rat­tle, Zubin Mehta, and Anne-Sophie Mutter). One of her great­est ac­com­plish­ments to date has been her full-length o­pe­ra Cin­der­el­la. The work pre­miered in an ear­ly cham­ber ver­sion in 2015 in Is­ra­el, and then was per­formed in a full­er ver­sion in Vi­en­na un­der the pat­ron­age of the great con­duc­tor Zubin Mehta. The Viennese pro­duc­tion was warm­ly re­ceived in the press. As put by the Dai­ly Tel­e­graph, "Cin­der­el­la proves that Deut­scher is an ex­traor­di­nar­y tal­ent. That a young girl could have the men­tal en­er­gy to com­pose a two-hour o­pe­ra and take cred­it for its full or­ches­tra­tion is stag­ger­ing; that the end re­sult is a live­ly, co­her­ent piece of com­ic o­pe­ra is ex­cep­tion­al." The new ver­sion of the o­pe­ra pre­sent­ed by O­pe­ra San José has been re-or­ches­trat­ed for a full cham­ber or­ches­tra.

Vanessa Becerra, Cinderella
Jonas Hacker, Prince
Mary Dunleavy, Stepmother
Karin Mushegain, Zibaldona
Stacey Tappan, Griselda
Claudia Chapa, Emeline
Nathan Stark, King
Brian James Myer, Minister
Helen Deutscher, Flower Girl

Opera San José Orchestra
Opera San José Chorus
Opera San José Dancers and Supers
Andrew Whitfield, assistant conductor
Jane Glover, conductor

Brad Dalton, stage director
Steven Kemp, set designer
Johann Stegmeier, costume designer
Alyssa Oania, costume director
Robert Pickens, wig & makeup designer
David Lee Cutbert, lighting designer
Richard Powers, choreographer
Andrew Whitfield, chorus master