HOUSTON - Cinderella in Spain - Cinderella en Espana, a bilingual fairy tale, with libretto by area children's theater writer Kate Pogue and local composer May Carol Warwick, will cast its spell Saturday, May 23 at 11 AM at the newly renovated Miller Outdoor Theatre. As always with performances at the public venue in Houston's Hermann Park, admission is free of charge. A hybrid of musical and performance styles, with the music reflecting the sensibilities of Mozart and Rossini and the performance drawing on English pantomime and classical ballet, Cinderella in Spain -- Cinderella en Espana was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera's education and outreach department as part of its "Communications Connections Initiative," an ongoing outreach program to build tomorrow's audiences today. In this storybook production, Houston Grand Opera is collaborating with Opera to Go!, a professional touring company which presents fully-staged, portable operatic theater for children in grades K through 7. This is the first bilingual opera performed by Opera to Go!; this spring more than 36,000 schoolchildren experienced Cinderella's eternal charm. Pogue and Warwick have set the heroine's adventures in 18th century Spain after discovering that folklorists have documented a Spanish version, with Cinderella often called Cenicienta or Blanquita, some 300 years old.

Cinderella in Spain - Cinderella en Espana plays at Miller Outdoor Theatre on May 23. For tickets, free of charge, call (713) 546-0230

By Peter Szatmary
Texas Correspondent