Rossini was only twenty-five when he composed Cinderella and he was already famous all over Europe for his previous works, particularly The Italian Girl in Algiers and The Barber of Seville. Cinderella was written for Mr. Cartoni, the impresario of Teatro Valle in Rome and it was supposed to be performed during the carneval in Rome in 1816. The librettist was Jacopo Ferretti. He suggested that the new opera be based on the French fairy-tale Cendrillon, written by Charles Perrault, but almost none of the elements of the popular fairy-tale remained in the libretto. The glass shoe was replaced by a bracelet in order to avoid the strict Roman censorship which forbade the bare female foot on the stage. The libretto was written in twenty-two days and set to music in only twenty-four days. The process of work was fast because Rossini used the music from his previous operas. The overture was taken from Neapolitan opera La gazetta.

Cinderella is the most complex of all Rossini’s operas because, besides the recongizable and unsurpassed sense of comedy, it abounds with the elements of opera seria, and is musically more demanding than any score he had written so far. Respecting the tradition of bel canto with the virtuoso vocal parts and brilliant ensembles, such as the sextette in the Act I and the finale of Act II, Rossini has created a true master-piece full of warmth and humanness.