BRB, 25/06/2021
Prokofiev : Cinderella
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Philip Ellis
More than anything else, getting back to a live performance, in a theatre, with a sizeable audience in attendance, is beyond price. It's impossible to describe. Empty halls give an unsettling atmosphere, while watching from home cannot compare because you do not focus your attention as wholly as you do in a hall or theatre. Even having to accept abbreviated works and altered orchestrations is far outweighed by the benefits.
That said, Birmingham Royal Ballet's current run of Sir David Bintley's 2016 version of Prokofiev's Cinderella is nevertheless a full evening's performance, with an interval. The orchestra was reduced, and social distancing obliging, could not even be present in the theatre's pit, but were playing in some nearby studio, and the sound was piped into the hall. While the detail of the orchestration was really brought out by the microphones (the harp sounded magnificent!), it was somewhat disconcerting to have the sound of the music coming from the sides, rather than from in front, but in the end it mattered little. I only really noticed the reduced orchestration at the start of Act 2, where the strings sounded a little undernourished, and there were moments that were somewhat noticeably less well-rehearsed than others, but it was nevertheless a heartfelt performance.
As for the actual dancing, that too was somewhat reduced, but not just by sanitary regulations. I've only been in the Birmingham Repertory Theatre once, as opposed to the Birmingham Hippodrome, but this time it was very clear to me that the stage area is substantially smaller. So there were fewer dancers on stage, less room for them to fill, and some fairly significant cuts in the music, notably the Four Seasons suite in Act 1. Some of the scenery had to be adapted as well. John Macfarlane's beautiful clock, for the end of Act 2, was shorn of its mesmerising clockwork. Again, it's the beginning of Act 2 that suffered most, with the ball looking rather sparsely attended, and without the full, prior warning in Act 1, the arrival of midnight in Act 2 lost a little of its urgency. Unlike their December Nutcracker, similarly reduced, which did ruffle my feathers, I was less disturbed by the modifications to Cinderella.
The other net result was a significantly reduced cast of soloists. A Fairy Godmother reduced to a small amount of arm-waving, graciously done by Yvette Knight, a Dancing Master a little unevenly performed by Shuailin Wu, Jonathan Payn's long-suffering Major-Domo, and Cinderella, her Prince, and her family. Emma Price was the Stepmother, more insinuating than imperious, with Alexandra Burman as a sharp, hyper Skinny, and Reina Fuchigami particularly effective - sort of gormlessly endearing, despite her bouts of meanness - as Dumpy. Tyrone Singleton was the Prince, elegant and secure as a partner, though I wondered if he might have been a little constrained by the space, because sometimes I felt he was holding back somewhat on some of the leaps. However, the real charmer was the Cinderella of Yaoquian Shang, delightfully expressive from start to finish, whether it was the fresh innocence of the first act, the wide-eyed exhilaration of the second, or the beautifully judged mix of despair and hope at the start of Act 3 as she wonders whether the ball was a dream, or a reality. In a sense, the technical aspects of her dance were almost secondary, although there was nothing lacking, what really mattered was the interpretation, which was wholly persuasive.
[Next : 3rd July]