The Cenerentola Rats during a staging rehearsal (Photo: © Alan Alabastro)
When it comes to rehearsals of Seattle Opera’s Cenerentola (at McCaw Hall January 12 through 26), Xevi Dorca’s choreography isn’t what you think it means. He’s not teaching the steps to a mid-opera ballet; he’s instructing six dancers in how to behave like rats who are transformed into people.
The reason you don’t remember there being rats in Rossini’s opera is because there aren’t any — director Joan Font (of Barcelona’s storied Comediants) went back to Perrault’s Cinderella tale, with its rat-coachman and mice-horses who help Cinderella get to her ball in style. “They’re like her pets, in a way,” says Dorca, who studied contemporary dance at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, followed up by a residency with Transitions Dance Company at the Laban Center, London.
Xevi Dorca during a Cenerentola staging rehearsal (Photo: © Alan Alabastro)
Cenerentola‘s rats have animal movements and attitudes; they keep an eye on the action from behind furniture. Dorca and Font didn’t want them to upstage any of the principal singers, or distract from the story being told — they just help to reintroduce a little magic to Rossini’s version of the story, which they’re telling with a commedia dell’arte flair. (The co-production originated in Barcelona; there’s a DVD available with Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce DiDonato.)
Dorca’s days are not filled up entirely with rat-like movements; he’s also responsible for much of the opera’s gestural vocabulary, helping the singers find “specific and concrete” movements that help illustrate the emotions in play. He’s had more work in Seattle, which often double-casts lead roles.
For this production there are two Cinderellas (Daniela Pini and Karin Mushegain), who are actually called Angelina in the opera; two princely Don Ramiros (René Barbera and Edgardo Rocha); and two fatherly Don Magnificos (Patrick Carfizzi and Valerian Ruminski). Brett Polegato, at Seattle Opera just last season as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, plays Dandini, the prince’s manservant.
You’ll also see Dorca’s choreography during a highlight of the opera, during the sextet (“Siete voi!”) that Rossini wrote for Ramiro, Angelina, Don Magnifico, the step-sisters Clorinda and Tisbe, and Dandini. Each character gets a movement per phrase, and, just as the voices interwine, so does the movement grow into a larger structure.