Let us talk about more pleasant things. Let us talk about the music. Patrik Ringborg and the Freiburg Philharmonic play Gioacchino Rossini's opera La Cenerentola as if this version of Cinderella was written by Mozart: delicate, elegant, as if drawn in pastel colours, more gentle than flurried. The soberly invoked calls of the clarinet, the curls of the bassoon at the start determines the musical climate even beyond the tenderly toned ouverture: Chamber art, pleasurably shaded unobtrusiveness everywhere. Rossini's famous crescendo automatism emanates from the whispering pianissimo-void. Ringborg dances on tiptoe. The orchestra honourably plays along, in particular, the wood winds with their pointedly ebullient remarks. And we learn that a tone of melancholy resounds in this Cenerentola.

In front of the most convincing Freiburg Philharmonic the conductor Patrik Ringborg proves his flair for Rossini. The music sounds light-footed, full of energy, animating and exceedingly subtle.
There is no question that Freiburg offers a very rewarding, top-class operatic evening with this Cenerentola.