Forget the massive orchestra and towering balconies of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When Northampton’s PanOpera brings “Cinderella” to 33 Hawley this month, they will be inviting the audience into a space that feels less like a grand hall and more like a private living room. Director Kate Saik DeLugan said this show trades the “whole shebang” of traditional opera for an intimate, character-driven experience designed to be experienced more closely than in a large concert hall.
The opera involves the familiar “Cinderella” narrative, a story about a kind girl who finds love one magical night at a ball, despite the jealousies of her cruel stepmother and stepsisters.
This production will be fully staged, with set pieces and costumes, but will be performed as a “parlor opera.”
“It’s great because it just doesn’t require a lot,” said DeLugan, who is the current president of PanOpera. “We’re talking a couple tables and chairs, and other than that, we’re really just focused on the interactions between the characters.”
In fact, this intimate setting is exactly what its creator, Pauline Viardot, intended. Viardot, who lived from 1821 to 1910, was a prolific and respected composer and singer who composed in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Russian; wrote more than 100 songs; and hosted salons.
Musicologist Natasha Loges, who is a researcher at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and is working on a biography about the composer, noted in the Oxford International Song Festival that Viardot composed all her life, moving with ease between the various national styles she assimilated.
“Her formal range is vast, from simple folk-like songs to through-composed large-scale structures,” Loges wrote. “She deserves far greater recognition for her compositional achievements.”
“We were excited for the opportunity to elevate this music,” DeLugan said, “because it’s just such gorgeous music. It’s so charming. It’s very accessible, I think, for all audiences, whether or not you have a lot of experience with classical music or opera. It’s very melodic. There’s lots of cute interactions between the characters, as you would imagine, for this story, and we also thought maybe this would be a nice opportunity to encourage people to bring their kids and get them exposed to classical music.”
The cast includes Emily Baker, soprano, as Cinderella; Rachel Abrams, mezzo-soprano, as Prince Charming; Shelley Roberts, soprano, as The Count Barigoule; Liam Shannon, baritone, as The Baron Pictordu; Mary Brown Bonacci, mezzo-soprano, as Armelinde; Sarah McGinn, soprano, as Maguelonne; and Nicole Newel, soprano, as Fairy Godmother.
In keeping with PanOpera’s mission to make its productions accessible to the community, this show will be entirely in English, with some dialogue, like an operetta, and no supertitles. Its runtime will be under an hour and a half.
That goal also informed DeLugan’s goals for the organization post-COVID-19. Like many arts organizations, PanOpera halted its in-person productions during the pandemic. When longtime artistic director Alan Schneider stepped down from his role, DeLugan and some of her colleagues approached Schneider with the intent to formally reorganize as a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which they did in 2023.
“We really felt that it’s important that the audiences feel that they have a stake in some kind of ownership and partnership with us,” DeLugan said. “We know how many folks in the Valley really want there to be more opera happening here. It feels like that’s a big missing piece in our very vibrant artistic community, so, along those lines, we also really have a principle of wanting to make things accessible for everybody in any way that we can.”
As such, tickets are pay-what-you-can, with a minimum donation of $5 and suggested donation of $20, and all of the performers are volunteers.
“We all share that same passion for wanting to make music and art accessible in our community and wanting to be able to build a company that can present more diverse vocal music in the Valley,” DeLugan said.
The Northampton opera company PanOpera’s production of “Cinderella” will take place at the Flex Room at 33 Hawley on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 25 at 4 p.m.
To buy tickets or for more information about PanOpera, visit panopera.us.