Program Notes:

Director's Note:
Fairy tales have been part of every culture since the beginning of memory, initially orally passed on and only later recorded, adapted, sanitized, and anthologized.
The Cinderella story is one of the most universal and has been told for over a thousand years; versions come from China, Scotland, Germany, Sicily, and France, where the current Perrault version became the western standard. The constant through the Cinderella stories are an absent, deceased mother, a helper figure (often the mother's spirit in animal or tree form and later transformed into the fairy godmother), and the magical transforming slipper or shoe. Fairy tales in modern retellings take on societal morals or lessons, and this is particularly evident in the Brothers Grimm, where Wilhelm's passionate Christianity softened the original harshness in many of the family relations and emphasized outcomes of justice, and punishment and reward. Early tales are often brutal and direct. The first versions of Red Riding Hood out of France were very simple: little girls should not go into the woods alone, they will be eaten by wolves. Here we have another telling of Cinderella, stemming from Perrault and filtered through Massenet's music. Rather than dictating what it means or what we should think, it is perhaps best that we allow the tale to be active and enter our imaginations to disturb, entertain, and linger with its many associations.

Synopsis
Act One: In the hope of attracting the Prince's attention, Madame de la Haltière and her daughters dress and leave for the ball. Pandolfe regrets his remarriage but nevertheless accompanies his wife, leaving Cinderella to her miserable lot. The girl unenthusiastically returns to her chores but soon falls asleep. While Cinderella is sleeping, the Fairy Godmother dresses the girl in a magnificent gown, putting a glass slipper on her foot so that she will not be recognized. Upon waking, Cinderella promises to return at midnight and leaves for the ball.

Act Two: The guests try unsuccessfully to entertain the melancholy Prince. Cinderella's entrance attracts great attention. The young Prince and the girl fall in love at first sight, but soon midnight strikes and Cinderella must leave.

INTERMISSION

Act Three: In her haste, Cinderella loses her slipper. Returning home, Madame de la Haltière expresses her delight at the Prince's seeming coolness which caused the unknown girl to flee from the ball. Cinderella is overcome with emotion. She evokes her dead mother and, weary of life, rushes beneath the Fairies's oak to die.
The prince, who cannot think of life without his beloved, has been lured into the woods by the Fairy Godmother. Unable to see each other, the lovers recognize one another by their voices and implore the Fairy Godmother to remove the enchanted bush between them. She does so, and the Prince and Cinderella fall asleep in each other's arms.

Act Four: Pandolfe finds his daughter alone and ill in the woods and nurses her back to health. In her delirium she has convinced herself that meeting the Prince was all a dream. It is announced that the Prince is seeking the owner of the mysterious slipper. Cinderella, realizing the truth, leaves for the palace. The Prince recognizes her, and his love of life is renewed.

Uri Mayer
Conductor

Appointed Director of the Orchestral Program and Resident Conductor of The Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School in September of 2009, conductor Uri Mayer has also taught on the faculties at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, McGill University in Montreal, and Rice University Shepherd School of Music in Houston. Renowned for his strong command of broad symphonic, operatic, and ballet repertoire, Maestro Mayer has conducted many leading orchestras around the world including the Montreal Symphony, Houston Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, and NHK Orchestra in Japan. He served as Principal Conductor of the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra in Osaka, Japan, and Artistic Director of the Israel Sinfonietta. In Canada, he was Music Director of the Edmonton Symphony and Orchestra London, and appeared as guest conductor with the National Ballet of Canada. Some of the distinguished singers who have collaborated with him include Ely Ameling, Kathleen Battle, Frederica von Stade, Maureen Forrester, Michael Schade, and Russell Braun. He has led numerous opera productions in Canada, the USA, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Israel, including The Barber of Seville, Così fan tutte, Rigoletto, The Flying Dutchman, and Salome.
Uri Mayer has recorded for the Arabesque, Denon Japan, Hungaroton, and Koch labels. His CBC recordings include Great Tenor Arias with Ermanno Mauro and the Juno nominated Great Verdi Arias with baritone Louis Quilico, both with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Brahm Goldhamer
Artistic Director
Brahm Goldhamer is one of Toronto's most experienced accompanists and vocal coaches, and has performed across Canada, the U.S., and Europe. For the past 28 years he has been on faculty at The Royal Conservatory, where he is founder and Artistic Director of The Glenn Gould School's Opera Ensemble Program and teacher of collaborative piano skills. He has directed operatic scenes with an international cast of students at Oberlin's Casalmaggiore Music Festival in Italy, and his performances include work with Opera in Concert, Toronto Operetta Theatre, CBC's Music Around Us, the Elora Festival, Banff Festival, Debut Atlantic, and Prairie Debut. Mr. Goldhamer was nominated for a Best Musical Direction Dora Award for his work with Comus Music Theatre. For the past three summers he has returned to Italy as a coach with Northern Arizona University's "Flagstaff" in Fidenza. He also teaches with Richard Margison and Valerie Kuinka in the Highlands Opera Studio. Mr. Goldhamer is passionate about the development of young Canadian vocal talent, and the advancement of the careers of young singers has been his mission in both teaching and performance.

Graham Cozzubbo
Director
Graham Cozzubbo's work as a director encompasses theatre, contemporary music theatre, and opera. He is the former Assistant Artistic Director of the Banff Centre for the Arts contemporary opera program where he directed a number of performances including Birtwistle's Bow Down, Henze's El Cimarrón, and the world premiere of Toovey's Spurt of Blood. He has directed a new production of Verdi's Nabucco for Pacific Opera Victoria, Madama Butterfly for Opera Hamilton, and Calgary Opera's Le nozze di Figaro. For the Canadian Opera Company Cozzubbo was an assistant director for over fifteen productions including Handel's Xerxes, Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis, Janá?ek's The Cunning Little Vixen, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms, and Henze's Venus und Adonis. Most recently, he collaborated with lighting designer Robert Thomson in creating a semi-staged version of Die Zauberflöte for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

This is Mr. Cozzubbo's directorial debut at The Royal Conservatory.

Robert Thomson
Lighting Designer
Robert Thomson is one of Canada's most versatile and active lighting designers. Over the past eight seasons his designs for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival included Zastrozzi, Rice Boy, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Odyssey, Into the Woods, Caesar and Cleopatra, and King Lear. Mr. Thomson designed for the Shaw Festival for 24 seasons, with credits including 10 years as Head of Lighting Design, and productions such as Picnic, St. Joan, Cavalcade, and Cyrano de Bergerac. He served as Resident Lighting Designer for The National Ballet of Canada for 12 seasons, designing over 25 ballets. His recent credits include Robert Lepage's globally acclaimed Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung for Seattle Opera, Krapp's Last Tape and Hughie for Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Buried Child and Macbeth for NAC, The Wizard of Oz for The Citadel, and the Tony Award-nominated production of King Lear. Mr. Thomson has received numerous awards including a Sterling and four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.

This is Mr. Thomson's first production at The Royal Conservatory.

Royal Conservatory Orchestra of The Glenn Gould School
The Royal Conservatory Orchestra (RCO) is widely regarded as one of the finest ensembles in Canada, and one of the best training orchestras in North America. The RCO ensures that instrumental students in the Performance Diploma Program and the Artist Diploma Program of The Glenn Gould School graduate with valuable and impressive performance experience. Graduates of the RCO have joined the ranks of the greatest orchestras in the world, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, Tafelmusik, the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester, the BBC Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Leipzig Gewandhaus. The RCO is led by Maestro Uri Mayer, Director of the Orchestral Program and Resident Conductor. Guest conductors have included Mario Bernardi, Yoav Talmi, Uriel Segal, Simon Streatfeild, and Richard Bradshaw. This season the RCO has performed under the batons of Peter Oundjian and Leon Fleisher.

Opera in Concert Chorus
Robert Cooper, Music Director
The Opera in Concert Chorus, under Music Director Robert Cooper, has appeared in every OIC Season since its founding in 1978. It has performed with the Toronto Symphony, Mainly Mozart Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, the National Ballet of Canada, appeared at the Algoma Fall Festival, Guelph Spring Festival, Toronto International Festival, and sung joint concerts with Elmer Iseler Singers, Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, Guelph Chamber Choir, and the Canadian Opera Company. The OIC Chorus recorded the soundtrack for the feature film The Wars, and has provided choral music for several Stratford Festival productions. OICC has performed for New Music Concerts, premiered and recorded for Rhombus Media a collection of songs by John Weinzweig, in preparation for a documentary on the composer, sang the Toronto premiere of Paul Winter's jazz mass Missa Gaia, and appeared in R. Murray Schafer's Apocalypsis during the International Choral Festival.

Tonight marks OIC's debut at The Royal Conservatory.