UA Opera looks at Cinderella with a sense of humor

Remember how in the fairy tale “Cinderella,” her father dies and she’s left to serve the whims of her spoiled stepsisters and endure the cruelty of her wicked stepmother?

In French composer Jules Massenet’s version, dad’s alive and kowtowing to his wife and snotty stepdaughters, while his own daughter becomes a stranger in her own home.

If you’re thinking this sounds straight out of today’s headlines of cruel parents and neglected children, you’re only half right, because Massenet had a pretty sharp wit, which is on full display in “Cendrillon,” being performed by the UA Opera Theatre this weekend.

While mostly adhering to the fairytale, Massenet takes a few detours in the retelling:

Cinderella does get help from her fairy godmother and her attendants to turn her drab housedress into a stunning ball gown complete with glass slippers. And she is whisked away to the ball, where Prince Charming spots her in a crowded ballroom and falls instantly and madly in love. And, yes, she loses a glass slipper as she beats feet to make the midnight changing-back-into-a-plain-Jane-servant-girl deadline.

But then the story gets a bit twisty: Cinderella — or Cendrillon in Massenet’s version — has a dream that she runs away from her wacky family and ends up falling asleep in the forest. And somewhere in that dream, the prince arrives to save the day.

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Then she wakes up to realize it was all a dream, until her stepmother excitedly announces that the prince is looking for glass slipper girl. Here’s where the story gets a little loopy: Instead of going around from house to house in the kingdom looking for the girl of his dreams who can fit into the slipper, the prince holes up in his grand ballroom and let’s the girls come to him. And when he spots Cendrillon, well, you know how that ends.

Or do you?

In the fairytale version, the prince and the girl of his destiny kiss, and the curtain comes down.

In Massenet’s version, the cast breaks character, turns to the audience and sings that the play is over and they really hope that they have done their best to send you through “les beaux pays bleus” (the beautiful blue countries).

See?

Wacky.