“Out of old tales, we must make new lives,” the great literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun once wrote. For London audiences still feeling weary after World War II, the Cinderella fairy tale took on a spectacular new life in the ballet choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton to the music of Sergei Prokofiev.
Seventy-seven years later, Ballet West’s newest production of this Cinderella masterpiece from Great Britain is like a perfectly fitted glass slipper. In an unparalleled opening night performance, Ballet West’s rendering of this Ashton blockbuster was elevated to the pantheon of the perfect storybook ballet. Cinderella is on par with the company’s The Nutcracker, which officially became the first performing art piece in the U.S. to be designated officially as a living historic landmark by the State of Utah.
Featuring new sets and costumes, this extraordinary Cinderella production by Ballet West is a glittering bounty of poetic magic, pure technique, flawless partnering, elegant lyricism, smart comedy and masterful characterizations. As Cinderella, Amy Potter impressively extracts fresh emotional depth from a character we thought that we already have known well since our childhood days.
Jane Yolen, one of the contemporary age’s most prolific writers of fantasy, science fiction and children’s stories, once explained, “Cinderella speaks to all of us in whatever skin we inhabit: the child mistreated, a princess or highborn lady in disguise bearing her trials with patience and fortitude. She makes intelligent decisions for she knows that wishing solves nothing without the concomitant action…. To make Cinderella less than she is, then, is a heresy of the worst kind.” Impeccably graceful and resilient, even in the ashes of the dark kitchen, Potter reveals Cinderella’s ever-present beauty and pure heart.
The revelation becomes more striking in the astonishing forest scene of Cinderella’s transformation, magnified by the spellbinding performances of The Fairy Godmother (Victoria Vassos), the Fairies of the Four Seasons (Kristina Pool, Lillian Casscells, Rylee Ann Rogers and Nicole Fanney) and the 12 stars. In this particular scene, the synchronization of the dance movement on stage with the equally demanding music in Prokofiev’s score, with a tour de force performance by the Ballet West Orchestra led by Jared Oaks, crystallized the assertion of a company at its heights in artistic excellence.
Iridescent gems overflow this jewel box of a production, which was staged by internationally known ballet master Malin Thoors. Just as in their exquisite footwork, the dancers exuded, as needed, the appropriate emotional, comedic or sensual elements through their upper body expressive movement. This especially stood out in the performances of the Fairies of the Four Seasons in the gorgeous forest scene in the first act. As Prince, Hadriel Diniz is an enthralling partner to Potter’s Cinderella. He effectively brings out the minute details in his character, who earnestly distances himself from those in his princely court who curry favor for materialistic standing over genuine friendship.
David Huffmire is a dazzling firecracker of a 17th century court jester. Naturally, the comedic spotlight shone the brightest on Cinderella’s stepsisters, performed on opening night by Tyler Gum and Jonas Malinka-Thompson. The chemistry was so tight that one would never have guessed that both came in as last-minute replacements. This also was the first time that the duo had performed these roles together — one who is fussy, shy and homely and the other domineering, scheming and relentlessly calculating. The stepsister roles are to be envied, as noted in the previously published preview at The Utah Review, as one of the greatest examples of dancing en travesti in ballet, as men perform the gender-bending roles.
Fueling their delusions about grace and beauty, some of the stepsisters’ best comedic moments parody bits from some of ballet’s most memorable characters, including The Nutcracker’s Sugar Plum Fairy, Swan Lake’s Odette, Don Quixote’s Kitri and, unsurprisingly, Sleeping Beauty’s Princess Aurora. Likewise, the stepsisters wrangle over who gets the larger orange, while the orchestra plays a snippet from Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges.
There were two other opening night changes, with Dominic Ballard taking on the father’s role and Anderson Duhan as Wellington, one of the delightful characters who appears in the second act’s palace ball. Likewise, William Lynch as Napoleon had his hilarious moment at the ball. Given the three rotating casts of principal and solo roles for this Cinderella run, Ballet West’s last-minute changes, when required because of illness, will sustain the seamless chemistry that carries this production.
The new sets and costumes which distinguish the third time that Ballet West has presented Ashton’s Cinderella are magnificent. The large spartan, dark kitchen; the magical English meadow garden, the palace façade with a tower clock and the final act’s grand staircase evoke the watercolor-like imagery in classic illustrated compendiums of fairy tales that were published in the 19th century. The costume design palette transcends time — in colors, styles, fabrics and period attire that stretches from the 17th century and onward through the next three centuries. As Adam Sklute, Ballet West artistic director, said in The Utah Review preview, Ballet West joined up with its counterpart companies in Boston and Cincinnati to split the costs of retrofitting the sets (which were originally designed for Covent Garden). Ballet West also modified and redid the costumes.
In a program note, Sklute explained how Prokofiev had given new life to the Cinderella story, especially in order to make it palatable to the Stalinist regime at the time. “He created the role of a Beggar Woman (who is actually the Fairy Godmother in disguise) that Cinderella shows kindness to. He presents nature (represented by the Fairies of the Four Seasons) as a force that can help overcome evil oppressors (Cinderella’s Stepsisters).” He added, “The Stepsisters, played by men for greater comedic effect and in the historic theatrical tradition of travesty, were to represent the overbearing ‘class’. Finally, the Prince, who is dissatisfied with his materialistic lifestyle, yearns for a simpler life and a lovely woman to share it with. In the end, they walk off into the dream of a truer and kinder world to come.”
There is profound acknowledgment in how the Ballet West dancers have taken to heart the unique storytelling elements in this Cinderella production. When Potter’s Cinderella encounters Vassos’ Fairy Godmother, the unconditional support the Fairy Godmother shows toward Cinderella is the actual gift she receives. Cinderella’s inner beauty radiates on the stage that the Fairy Godmother has given to her, to feel safe and comfortable in being seen as worthy and desirous of love, without worrying about becoming the target of envy. At the end, Cinderella is just as unconditionally graceful toward her humbled stepsisters.
This is why fairytales remain integral to our culture. Cinderella is universal — Ye Xian (Chinese), Chinye (West African), Rashin-Coatie (Scottish), Himegimi (Japanese), Mireleh (Ashkenazi Jewish), Domítíla (Mexican), Settareh (Persian) and the list extends on and on. On one hand, in the immediate moment, the story captures the relevant and specific tensions, anxieties, desires and cultural and social standards of the time in which the narrative is told. But, then Cinderella also clearly and succinctly expresses human experiences so familiar, timeless and relevant to every culture in human civilization that its retelling will always seem new to every generation who comes along. This is why the art of ballet is suited perfectly to the Cinderella narrative, particularly in this Ashton-Prokofiev version.
For tickets and more information, see the Ballet West website.