Scottish Ballet, 13/12/2023

Prokofiev : Cinderella

Scottish Ballet

Scottish Ballet Orchestra

Wolfgang Heinz

Scottish Ballet have titled this new production Cinders!, in order to give the principal character a gender-neutral name, because choreographer and company Artistic Director Christopher Hampson has re-imagined the familiar story as optional for a female or a male principal.  According to the information I have, when you book a ticket for the present run (which is quite extensive, going through to mid-February) you will not know in advance whether you are getting the traditional or non-traditional version.  

I found myself at a non-traditional performance, with Bruno Micchiardi as the downtrodden Cinders, and Jessica Fyfe as Princess Louise, and I was quite pleased at that because, of course, this was the version that offered the biggest differences to anything else I had previously seen.  Hampson had earlier staged a Cinderella for Scottish Ballet, a version originally created for RNZB, and I presume he felt he owed his present company an original version made just for them.  It's been about eight years since I saw that version, and I don't really recall the choreography clearly enough to say if he retained any of it this time around.  There was something slightly familiar about the stepsisters (who aren't, in this case, but more on that later), but it may have been just that, as in the earlier version, their whole demeanour was strongly influenced by Ashton's version.  Hampson has, however, tinkered with the Prokofiev score, with big cuts in Act 1, and the start of Act 3 almost wholly replaced by some other Prokofiev pieces which I haven't identified.  

The basic story (in either form) remains the same, but the action has been placed at the start of the 20th Century, and Cinders's parents, proprietors of an elegant drapers and milliners, perish in a fire, leaving the boy/girl an orphan.  Ten years later, the shop is re-opened by a Mrs. Thorne, identified as an American heiress, and her three children.  Yes, three, after all, if you have a boy-Cinders, you have to have another boy to try on the shoe.  There's Morag, who's both trashy and just plain mean, there's Flossie, who's actually quite good-natured, but just about as down-trodden as Cinders themself, and Tarquin, who's sort of petty, but not irredeemably horrible.  Presumably, Cinders, now adult, has sought employment there, but there are some rather gaping plot-holes, notably why they, in particular, are so picked-upon, why they seem to live in the shop, why they even receive an invitation to the ball... the list is quite extensive, when you get down to it.  There's no fairy godperson, it's the spirits of the deceased parents who guide Cinders towards their adventure, and the whole transformation scene seems a bit weak, to be honest.

What really worked was the Princess, who is possibly even more interesting than the male Cinders, because the effect of the gender switch is much more powerful in this character.  What you get in the pas de deux is a partnership in which the female dancer consistently takes the lead, because she, as a princess, has been bred to power, and to leadership, and the fact she's in a lovely ballgown makes no difference to that.  She comes on stage with the same assurance and pride that you expect to see in the more traditional Prince.  Jessica Fyfe conveyed this superbly, everything about her presence, her attitude, her poise exuded authority, and she never struck a false note in the way she was the one coaxing Cinders out of his shell, drawing him in and giving him confidence.  I would say that to see this approach, and to see it successfully carried out, would be the primary reason to see the male-lead version of Cinders! over the female-lead one.  I don't think a male Cinders brought much particularly new to that part, but changing the prince to a princess, that really made an impact.  This is no reflection on Micchiardi's performance, which was accomplished and very sympathetic, but it was Fyfe who caught my eye, and who I wanted to watch.

However, like the earlier Cinderella, I find Hampson's work overall fairly superficial.  The show is beautifully designed, again drawing on Art Nouveau inspiration, and there are some moments that stand out.  Other than the Princess at the ball, there's a very charming number for the infant Cinders right at the start (or at least, the male version was very charming), and I liked the play 'fight' between the Princess's two companions (they stay male, in both versions).   However, I was rarely moved by what I was seeing, nor do I find the choreography particularly memorable, and some of the plot contrivances were frankly annoying.  As traditional as it is, the whole shoe business doesn't really work with a male dancer, because you never see him wearing them in the first place.  At least with a ballerina, there's usually some attempt to decorate her pointe shoes suitably.  Also, with the way this story has been tweaked, you never get to see him try them on either.  Perhaps most of all, I find it lacks magic; as mentioned earlier, the transformation is strangely flat and unconvincing, and the rest is fairly prosaic.  As I mentioned last time, I still remember Peter Darrell's version.  The music's not Prokofiev, but that was a Cinderella that really felt magical.

[Next: 27th December]