School of Music

Beauty and the Beast - 2000
by Vittorio Giannini

Beauty is the youngest of a merchant who had fallen on hard times. As she scrubs the floors with her elder sisters watching, the father sets off on a business trip, hoping it will be successful. As he leaves he tells his daughters he will bring them gifts from afar. Beauty asks only that he bring her a rose. The father's trip was unsuccessful and, to make matters worse, as he returns home he gets lost in a storm. He happens across a castle and asks the castle gardener for a rose from the garden for his daughter, Beauty, trying at least to make her meager request possible. The gardener reluctantly complies and lets the father pick a rose. A horrible looking beast emerges from the castle at that moment and exhibiting extraordinary magical powers turns the gardener to stone for allowing the rose to be picked. The Beast suggests that payment for the rose be the merchant's daughter Beauty to be his bride. The father wants no part of the request and offers the Beast to kill him instead, but to no avail. To protect her father and sisters, Beauty tells her father that she accepts the Beast's request and goes to live in the castle with him.

Kiami Blaha as Beauty and Collin Poynter as Beast

Eventually, the Beast decides to let Beauty visit her home, but only with the provision that she must one day return to the castle. he gives her a magic ring that transports her instantly to each place. She returns home. But while there, she dreams of the Beast. she has a premonition also - that the Beast is dying from sadness at her absence. She tells her father that she must return to the Beast because "he has been kind to me." Upon her return to the castle, her affection saves the Beast from death and she uses the magic ring to return the gardener to life. The Beast suddenly loses his beastly features and the opera ends happily as the couple sing their love for each other.

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