The Met: Live in HD performs Massenet’s ‘Cinderella’

Above : The Met: Live in HD production of the opera “Cinderella” will screen on Saturday and Wednesday. (Photo/Fathom Events)

Though most of us are familiar with the story of “Cinderella” thanks to Walt Disney, the tale actually dates back a couple of millennia – to the ancient Greeks.

So many versions of the tale – about a girl of meager means who ends up being courted by (then married to) someone of noble birth – have been passed down since then that it’s impossible to give any single person credit for the original idea.

The Disney version was a fanciful reworking of the 1697 tale told by French writer Charles Perrault . And some three centuries later another Frenchman, composer Jules Massenet, adapted the story as an opera, which he titled “Cendrillon.”

That is the work, titled the more familiar “Cinderella,” that will be featured in The Met: Live in HD performance on Saturday and Wednesday at two area Regal theaters, Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.

Saturday’s screening will begin at 9:55 a.m., Wednesday’s (at Northtown only) at 1 and 6:30 p.m.

The performance is an abridged, 90-minute version of Massenet’s work, translated into English. Staged by Laurent Pelly, it features mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as the title character, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo as Prince Charming and soprano Jessica Pratt as the Fairy Godmother.

“Cinderella” as an opera. Even old Walt himself couldn’t have imagined that.