Massenet’s neglected take on the Cinderella tale was first performed in 1899, so why has it taken until now to reach the Royal Opera House? And not only has Covent Garden ignored the work: it has received scant attention by the labels, the only extant recording I can trace being Julius Rudel’s from 1978 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, graced by Frederica von Stade in the title role but with the mezzo principal boy role of Prince Charming taken by Nicolai Gedda.

The most notable aspects of Covent Garden’s first performance of the work this week (a shared production with Barcelona, Brussels and Lille and which had its first outing at Santa Fe Opera in 2006) are Alice Coote’s amazing “Prince Charmant” – this fabulous singer really in her element – and Polish Ewa Podleś’s glorious contralto portrayal of Cinders’ stepmother, Madame de la Haltière – a long overdue first return to the house since her Covent Garden debut in Guillaume Tell in 1990.

Cendrillon herself is Gramophone’s Artist of the Year Joyce DiDonato, who is always a bundle of energy and an engaging performer even if she was in more subdued voice than in her bravura portrayals in reent years here of Donna Elvira (which utterly dominated the Royal Opera’s Don Giovanni) and Rosina (where she was confined to a wheelchair having broken her leg at the beginning of the run).

The other key role is the airy-fairy soprano of Cendrillon’s Fairy Godmother, “La Fée”, performed here with a certain aplomb by the Cuban-American Eglise Gutiérrez, who combined to great effect with Coote and DiDonato in the work’s musical climax, set in an enchanted forest, which here more resembles a large-scale Lego factory complex.

The director is Laurent Pelly, who was also responsible for the very fetching costumes – he likes red. The panto elements of the ballet sequences are amusing, the music pretty and sometimes forgettable. French baritone Jean-Philippe Lafont makes his Royal Opera debut as Cinderella’s pathetic father, but the male roles are the least interesting here.

This Cinderella is based on a late 17th-century supernatural version of the fairytale by the French author Charles Perrault, but Massenet’s setting is less satisfying than Prokofiev’s treatment of the tale in his ballet Cinderella (my first experience of the Royal Opera House, when I saw Fonteyn in the title role in 1962) or, indeed, than Rossini’s rather less supernatural La Cenerentola.

But judge for yourself: Cendrillon is broadcast live on Radio 3 tomorrow (7pm, July 9); it is also being screened live in cinemas across the UK on July 13.