Dandini (character) swap. Dandini (character) Dandini is a character in the opera "La Cenerentola" by Rossini and also in the "Cinderella" pantomime. He is the male servant of the Prince (the principal male character: Don Ramiro in the opera, commonly Prince Charming in the pantomime). Dandini helps the Prince to meet the principal female character (known as Angelina or Cinderella) without her knowing that he is a prince. Dandini pretends to be the prince and the real prince pretends to be his servant. In panto it is often played by a young woman, who dresses similarly to the Principal boy for the
Pantomime and 18th centuries such as Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705), John Weaver (1673–1760), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) and Gasparo Angiolini (1731–1803), earned it respectability and attested to the capability of dance to render complex stories and express human emotion. In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures, gender role reversal, and good defeating evil. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque,