Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Birmingham Hippodrome
February 15, 2017
Phil Preece
BRB Director David Bintley’s Cinderella premiered in 2010 and was revived in 2012 but for me the associations of this classic fairy tale were just too Christmas panto for comfort, especially since Peter Wright’s iconic Nutcracker is already the iconic jewel in the company’s Christmas crown. Like Cinders herself, this work seemed just too much like the poor relation.
And yet, and yet, somehow, right from the very start of this new revival, something felt different. The opening scene where Cinders, discovered by her unkindly step sisters counting her few treasured memory pieces is abused by both them and her imperious step-mother suddenly becomes all too real; everyone knows deliberate cruelty when they see it.
Photo Bill Cooper
Photo Bill Cooper
But it is in the great ball scene that deeper, darker messages than the simple story would seem to be capable of holding come insistently forward with sinister force. For this Prince’s ball is dark, the clothes dark, the lighting unnecessarily dim, the dancing somehow artificially lewd and distasteful. This is no celebration of life. It is Prokofiev’s music here that is most disturbing of all, sinister, jarringly atonal. This is not dance music for enjoyment, this is the discordant music for a funeral feast. I am reliably informed he got away with it in Stalinist Russia because some of its tunes echoed the Soviet ‘popular’ public music of the period, but perhaps its discordances are more a damning depiction of the evils of capitalism; this is after all an celebratory ball for the aristos and peasants can only look on.
All sadness is swept away in the newly-mounted third act, where Cinders has landed her intended, and attended by a host of golden clad corps de ballet she celebrates her good fortune; working girl to soviet princess, a success story whichever way it falls.
Momoko Hirata was exquisite as the transcendent Cinders, while Joseph Caley as her prince masked his own star quality, gallantly allowing his bride to shine. Special mention must go to Samara Downs (Skinny) and Laura Purkiss (Dumpy) the stepsisters for being convincingly rather than stereotypically spiteful, while Marion Tait, transcendent as Cinderella’s stepmother, made this role a masterclass in mime.
Cinderella runs at Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday February 25. For tickets phone the Box Office on 0844 338 5000 or go online at www.birminghamhippodrome.com
For subsequent tour dates in Salford, Plymouth and Sunderland, visit www.brb.org.uk.