La Cenerentola
opera by Gioachino Rossini

La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo ("Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant") is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the libretti written by Charles-Guillaume Étienne for the opera Cendrillon with music by Nicolas Isouard (first performed Paris, 1810) and by Francesco Fiorini for Agatina, o la virtù premiata with music by Stefano Pavesi (first performed Milan, 1814). All these operas are versions of the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. Rossini's opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817.
In this variation of the fairy tale, the wicked stepmother is replaced by a stepfather, Don Magnifico. The Fairy Godmother is replaced by Alidoro, a philosopher and tutor to the Prince. Cinderella is identified not by a glass slipper but by her silver bracelet. The supernatural elements that traditionally characterize the Cinderella story were removed from the libretto simply for ease of staging.
Rossini composed La Cenerentola when he was 25 years old, following the success of The Barber of Seville the year before. La Cenerentola, which he completed in a period of three weeks, is considered to have some of his finest writing for solo voice and ensembles.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “La Cenerentola” is opera by Gioachino Rossini. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cenerentola, opera and Gioachino, not as a finished interpretation.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q176700. VIAF identifies the subject as 184580205. The Library of Congress control number is n82077850. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1810, 1814 and 1817.
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This entry incorporates text from “La Cenerentola” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.