at the Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris in 1909 with Geneviève Vix as the Prince and Rose Heilbronner in the title role. Cendrillon was performed in Brussels and Milan in 1899, quickly followed by other Italian cities, New Orleans in 1902, and New York in 1912. Maggie Teyte in the title role and Mary Garden as the Prince led the cast in Chicago in 1911. The UK stage premiere was given in Swindon, Wiltshire in 1939, thanks to Lord Berners. In the post-World War II years, the opera has been seen in Brussels and Liege in 1982 (with Frederica von Stade, Ann Murray and Jules Bastin), Geneva in 1998, Strasbourg in 2003, at the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 (with Joyce DiDonato and Eglise Gutiérrez in Laurent Pelly's production), Brussels and Luxembourg in 2007, New York in 2008, Dresden, Montreal and Brisbane in 2010, Vancouver in February 2011, and the Juilliard School in New York City in April 2014. Having been produced at the Châtelet in 1984, in a staging borrowed from New York City Opera (with Maureen Forrester as Madame de la Haltière) Cendrillon was mounted in Paris at the Opéra-Comique in March 2011 conducted by Marc Minkowski. In July 2011 the Royal Opera House, London used Pelly's production, with the conductor Bertrand de Billy (later issued as a DVD), and Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu did likewise in December 2013. Cendrillon waited 119 years for its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera; the 2018 production featured DiDonato and Alice Coote in Pelly's production. Roles Synopsis A prologue in front of the curtain, suppressed before the premiere, introduced the characters and invited the audience to enjoy the fairy-tale "to escape from dark realities (pour échapper à des réalités sombres)" and to believe in the "fabulous (fabuleux)". The final words of the prologue are repeated at the end of the opera. Act 1 Chez Madame de la Haltière A large room in the house of Madame de la Haltière with a chimney grate. Servants are busy preparing for the ball. Pandolfe, the second husband of Madame de la Haltière, wonders why he forsook the calm of his country home to marry a selfish countess with her two daughters, and pities the lot of his own loving daughter Lucette (Cendrillon). Madame de la Haltière and her daughters Noémie and Dorothée dress while the mother tells them how to attract the prince's attention at the