Cinderella 99 • Program Note
During the pandemic, Scott Skiba of Baldwin Wallace University and Cleveland Opera Theater had the idea of commissioning several short operas that would have their premieres online, featuring gifted singing students. The project was delayed and delayed, but Gene Scheer and I decided we would base our opera on a situation all too familiar to families at the time: everybody home again and living together 24 hours a day. Lots of people focused on how difficult this situation was for the young people, but the parents went through a lot, as well. We decided it would be a comedy, with daughter and son discovering that their parents had become total pot heads in order to deal with the anxiety and stress of the situation.