Cinders!
Theatre Royal,
Glasgow,
Mary Brennan,
Five stars
Smoke wisps across the stage… Flames lick into view and the Rose’s elegant drapery business is suddenly no more. Only an orphaned child remains, tagged by a vintage Glasgow Herald headline as ‘Cinders’ - but who is Cinders?
And here’s where Scottish Ballet adds its own inspired twist to the familiar fairy tale: at some performances Cinders will be danced by a male lead, at others a ballerina will go to the ball - both will find true love, never fear.
Artistic Director and Cinders! choreographer, Christopher Hampson, had long been reflecting on the male/female stereotypes that still prevail in many ballets and fairy tales.
He decided to follow the company’s own tradition of showcasing classical technique while taking it in new directions - enter Cinders, danced by Bruno Micchiardi and by Bethany Kingsley-Garner in alternate performances that essentially follow the same narrative but harbour astutely different nuances in character and behaviour.
It’s a radical gambit but it fits. It fits! Whichever version you see - and I saw both - Cinders’s yearning for love and happiness reaches out to us with a poignant integrity.
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When the parvenu Thorne family - mother, son and two sisters - re-open the drapery, the Belle Epoch charm and class of the business has gone, replaced by their brash vulgarity. Cinders is constantly humiliated, with no sympathy for the tragic loss of both parents.
Yes, they’ve gone - but their abiding love remains undiminished, magically transforming Cinders’s wistfully romantic dreams into happy-ever-after reality.
As Cinders, Bruno Micchiardi has an expressive grace that builds from an initial reticence - a result of the bullying Thornes - into a debonair self-confidence when he catches the eye of Princess Louise (guest artist Jessica Fyfe).
She pursues him with smitten determination - the feeling of actually being wanted, loved again, frees his being and Micchiardi reveals this with a dashing finesse. The duets with Fyfe have a real spark of imminent passion: she may ultimately save him from a downtrodden life but his dynamic partnering shows he’s well worth saving.
The feeling of belonging, of being adored, brings a wonderful glow to Bethany Kingsley-Garner’s Cinders - she blossoms into exquisite womanhood, so assured (and technically brilliant) in her duets with the Prince (guest artist Joseph Taylor) where his tender regard offsets the vicious treatment from the Thornes.
Ah…the Thornes. In Hampson’s choreography their brashness becomes a source of clever comedy.
Brattish son Tarquin and ditsy, attention-seeking sisters Morag and Flossie are as loud and garish as their costumes. Casts on both nights excelled at making their characters ridiculous but never as mean as their nasty socially ambitious mother - roundly boo’d by gleeful audiences at the curtain-call.Proof, really, at how this new Cinders! delights and engages all ages.
It looks elegant, the Prokofiev score is brought vividly alive by the orchestra - soaringly romantic but never shmaltzy - and the dancing throughout shines with an understanding of what this story means at its very wise, perceptive heart.
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