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Cinders is a real festive gift
Time to go: Elisha Willis as Cinderella with Artists of Birmingham Royal Ballet as the giant clock strikes midnight. Photos Bill Cooper Cinderella Birmingham
Royal Ballet Birmingham
Hippodrome ****
THIS world premiere of David Bintley's classic ballet marks the BRB's
20th anniversary and proves a fitting gift to the City of Birmingham. It is a £1
million production, and the board's chairman Professor Michael Clarke
told VIP guests that by the end of its run here it will have been seen
by more than 38,000 people. And many millions more will
have an opportunity to enjoy it on the small screen during the Christmas
period, probably Boxing Day, on BBC 2 television after cameras have
recorded the spectacular show. Cinderella,
danced to Prokofiev's beautiful music, has taken over the traditional
spot filled by the magnificent Nutcracker over the years, and
while the new ballet doesn't quite reach the heights of that creation,
it is a worthy challenger.
The first 30 minutes is spent
in the cheerless grey kitchen of Cinderella's late father's home where
she is dominated by her grim stepmother and cruel step-sisters, Skinny
and Dumpy (the ugly sisters of panto land). Perhaps a little too long is
spent in the kitchen before the ballet blossoms in the Prince's palace
where Skinny (Gaylene Cummerfield) and Dumpy (Carol-Anne Millar) enjoy
some hilarious scenes as they attempt to catch the Prince's eye. A
well-padded Carol-Anne is a real hoot...a type of Ann Widdecombe, from
Strictly, in a canary yellow costume! And what a moment when Skinny spins on the giant wooden staff of the ballroom MC . . . a ballet first pole dance, maybe? Five ballerinas share the role
of Cinderella during the run of the ballet, and on opening night
(right) Elisha Willis danced superbly in the role,
with Iain Mackay impressive as the Prince. Costumes are, as ever,
superb. The dramatic midnight scene,
when Cinderella's beautiful ball gown returns to rags, is impressively
staged, with a huge clock coming together as half a dozen spinning cogs
tick off the final seconds of the spell cast by her Fairy Godmother
(Victoria Marr). Designed by John F. Macfarlane
with David A. Finn's lighting and Koen Kessels conducting the Royal
Ballet Sinfonia, this Cinders glows on to 12.12.10. Paul Marston Meanwhile just back from the ball . . . ***** YORKSHIRE born Natasha Oughtred was a
real Christmas star as she danced her way exquisitely through the title
role of the second night of BRB's new production of Cinderella. She always managed that look of vulnerability
and sadness as we moved along through her trials and tribulations to the
inevitable Freeman, Hardy and Willis shoe fitting scene when she grows
into a princess, followed, one assumes, by a royal wedding. Incidentally, one does wonder if the newspapers in fairy tale land show the same infuriating level of obsession and penchant for trivia, rumour and even realms of fantasy for their regal match as ours do. Meanwhile Cinderella was always going to be a
hard sell for the BRB. For a start it was replacing the much loved
Nutcracker so found itself as the ballet equivalent of the
replacement for the Morcambe and Wise Christmas Special. The two are different, perhaps not quite chalk
and cheese, but different enough to make comparisons unfair but
inevitably many who have been Nutcracker regulars will do just
that rather than judging Cinderella as a ballet on its own merit. That being said if a trip to the ballet at this
time of year is regarded as a Christmas treat then the magic is
certainly still there, just pulled out of a different hat. The next obstacle for BRB was familiarity. Cinderella has both the advantage and disadvantage that everyone knows that tale - except many know it with a Buttons, two dames as ugly sisters and a Baron Hardup creating plenty of laughs or as a sugary Disney version. David Bintley's new production is much darker and
more sinister. He opens with Cinderella at the funeral of her real
mother watched by her nasty old stepmother, (Marion Tait) and it doesn't
really get much better than that for poor old Cinders until the fairy
godmother (Andrea Tredinnick) pops up in the fireplace.
There is fun though with Samara Downs and a well padded Angela Paul superb as Skinny and Dumpy, the two mean step sisters. Their attempts to follow the dancing master,
(Mathias Dingman), and then to impress the Prince (Joseph Caley) at the
ball are genuinely funny. Despite Bintley's darker version emphasising a
tale of child abuse the pair come over as rather more remedial than evil
- and ugly sisters they ain't with Skinny, in particular, proving that
it might not be panto but Rodgers and Hammerstein were right - there is nothin' like a dame. David A Finn's lighting skillfully sets the mood for every scene while John F Macfarlane's designs are magnificent from the converted workhouse of a kitchen to the palace with sets full of moving walls and giant mirrors with backdrops of stars from distant galaxies. From solid to fluid in a few deft moves. Most spectacular is the clock which appears at
midnight - in the ballet not the theatre . . . it's not that long!!! -
huge with spinning cogs which appear in bits and fall into place to tick off the minutes to
the fateful hour when it all goes belly up for Cinders. Meanwhile, and this might be being a bit
pedantic, when Cinders left her sparkly glass slipper behind as she
vanished from the ball I could swear she had not been wearing them all
through the old palace bop . . . The music is sumptuous but always sounds to me
rather like incidental music to a film you half remember seeing with no clear
themes to recognise or anything to hum on your way home. That being said the Royal
Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Koen Kessels, squeezed every melody and
nuance from the score in a masterful rendition from the gloomy graveyard
opening to the happy couple riding off into the beautifully staged and
animated sun . . . sunrise? Doesn't anyone read Westerns round here . . . ? There was
no hint of a standing ovation on this second night but there was
sustained, generous applause and the performance of Cinders and her
sisters alone deserved at least that. Roger Clarke A promise of Magic - interview with Paul Grace, BRB Technical Director
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