CHRISTOPHER Hampson’s beautiful and imaginative choreography for Prokofiev’s Cinderella is an established part of Scottish Ballet’s repertoire. For this festive period, under the new, exclamatory title of Cinders!, it returns with a few notable alterations.
The headline-grabbing change is that the title role will alternate between female and (for the first time in world ballet) male dancers. Only after the curtain opens will audiences learn whether poor Cinders will be a woman courted by a handsome prince, or a man pursued by a beautiful princess.
Along with this gender switching comes the introduction of the character of Tarquin (the marvellously expressive – and utterly obnoxious – Aaron Venegas), brother of the nasty sisters. It is he who, during performances led by a male Cinders, will seek to force his foot into the famous glass slipper.
The ballet now has a completely new look, courtesy of Elin Steele’s gorgeously bold sets and costumes. In this revival, the action takes place in early-20th century Scotland.
The title character is orphaned when the family drapers business (a delightfully appointed Art Deco building) is destroyed by fire (hence our hero’s name, Cinders).
With Cinders’s parents, Mr and Mrs Rose, sadly deceased, the business is purchased (we learn from video designer Hayley Egan’s splendid newspaper front pages) by the heartless American heiress Madame Thorne (Grace Paulley, on frighteningly jagged form).
The new owner arrives with her awful offspring, the aforementioned son, Tarquin, and his equally loathsome sisters Morag and Flossie (Grace Horler and Claire Souet proving that, in ballet, you have to be very good to be very bad). She promptly adopts the orphaned Cinders, making our protagonist a Rose among Thornes.
All of which provides a wonderfully stylish and witty setting for Hampson’s deservedly acclaimed choreography. On opening night, we were treated to a male Cinders, danced by the fantastic principal Bruno Micchiardi.
This gender shift shouldn’t be controversial in 2023, nor is it. In fact, it is rather charming to see Cinders as a young man, dashing home from the ball as the clock strikes midnight.
It’s lovely, too, to watch the lovelorn aristocrat being danced by the tremendous Jessica Fyfe. The scene in which – under the princess’s orders – the royal shoemakers try almost mechanically to recreate Cinders’s slippers comes unchanged from previous incarnations of Hampson’s ballet.
That’s a good thing, too, as it epitomises the intelligence and humour of the choreography. The same is true of the sisters’ comically bad dancing at the ball, now enhanced by the pomposity of the wretched Tarquin.
On opening night, Micchiardi and Fyfe danced their pas de deux with great energy, elegance and precision (not least in the dream sequence in which the princess’s sleeping mind conjures up the elusive Cinders).
There would, of course, be no ballet without Prokofiev’s unforgettably romantic score, and the Scottish Ballet Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Heinz, deliver it with a tremendous verve that is equalled by that of the dancers themselves.
At Theatre Royal, Glasgow until December 31, then touring until February 10: scottishballet.co.uk
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