Mariana Sofía García

A removals company discovers a room full of curiosities among them a book of Cendrillon. What better way for a group of friends to pass the time than to perform this famous fairy tale about Cinderella and the glass slipper? Pauline Viardot’s comic opera in three tableaux from 1904 is seeped in joie de vivre, reflecting the influences of her entourage. As a singer and composer, Viardot was at the heart of artistic life in Paris in the second half of the 19th century, and counted George Sand, Chopin, Gounod, Berlioz, Donizetti among her friends and admirers.

A guileless Japanese girl gives up everything to marry a lieutenant in the US Navy. But when he suddenly leaves the country, she is determined to wait patiently until he sails back into harbour. Live from Valencia's iconic Palau de les Arts, the audience favourite Madama Butterfly returns with soprano Marina Rebeka and tenor Piero Pretti in the leading roles. Director Emilio López’s staging culminates in the bleak landscape of Nagasaki destroyed by the atomic bomb to evoke Puccini's early outcry against the soul-crushing spirit of colonialism.