Cinderella at London Coliseum: 'Hugely enjoyable contemporary spin'

Deepa Johnny, Aaron Godfrey Mayes, ENO’s Cinderella (La Cenerentola) 2025 - (Photo by Mark Douet)

Cinderella: that’s the one with the pumpkin coach, the glass slipper and the girl whose exquisite little foot fits it, enabling her to escape the servitude of cinder-sweeping in favour of a royal palace. Or is it? Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti jettisoned all those accessories and more in their version, and Julia Burbach, in her entertaining contemporary reading for ENO, goes a step or two further.

The dusty old castle of Cinderella’s stepfather, Don Magnifico, is abandoned in favour of a chic modern metropolitan apartment ingeniously designed by Herbert Murauer (lit by Malcolm Rippeth), with fake library and on two levels joined by a lift. Friends and hangers-on party maniacally; wrapped boxes keep arriving. As we later learn, Don Magnifico has staved off penury only by squandering money due to Cinderella.