CityLife

English National Ballet: Cinderella

English National Ballet: Cinderella
Palace Theatre
April 22, 2010

Winners of 2009’s Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for dance, English National Ballet are back this week with a show that’s even more of a crowd-puller than that wonderful Manon.

Their Cinderella has the distinction of employing every note that Prokoviev originally wrote for the ballet, and Michael Corder’s production, created in 1996 and last seen here in 2003, is pure classical dance from start to finish.

Those factors are not totally unalloyed blessings, though. It’s arguable that Prokoviev wrote too many notes back in 1944, and most other versions cut the score, which can seem a rather lengthy series of set pieces. Corder’s choreography, likewise, has its longueurs and repetitions and never quite rises to the heights.

But let’s accentuate the positive. The story is similar to the one we all know, but without pantomime trappings. There are two mean (rather than ugly) stepsisters, who have the chance to combine real virtuoso dance with comic carry-on – Adela Ramírez and Laura Bruña (who made her debut in the role on Wednesday) were excellent, and Jane Haworth matched them while out-grimacing everyone, as the wicked stepmother. 

The fairy godmother (Désirée Ballantyne) is a good and youthful sprite, who emerges as it were from Cinderella’s dreams, and is accompanied by a little galaxy of stars who dance the first act waltz in stylish and nimble fashion and come back at the end to complete everything in true fairytale tradition. 

There are four other fairies who help the heroine on her way, each with accompanying Cavalier, and ENB’s strength in soloist numbers is useful here – Senri Kou and James Forbat (Summer Fairy and Cavalier) were outstanding on Wednesday. I wasn’t entirely impressed with some of the other men’s partnering skills, particularly in lifting Miss Ballantyne.

Cinderella goes to the ball, of course, and proves again, if proof were needed, that she’s the star dancer of them all. Erina Takahashi was technically assured and daintily beautiful in the marathon sequence of demanding dancing which this role requires, and Dmitri Gruzdyev was her noble counterpart as the Prince, with Fabian Reimair and Zhanat Atymtayev, as his companions, given the only real male show-off stuff in the show. It’s a very girly ballet. 

Corder keeps everything formal, even in the love scenes, but you can’t blame the performers for that. The story is completed in the usual way, with more solos for the sisters (now incarnated as Spanish and Egyptian princesses) and a diverting solo for an Oriental Princess, where Stina Quagebeur shone in movement that was, for once, refreshingly different from the rest.

Until April 24, 2010.

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