As soon as the orchestra strikes up in Cinderella, you hear grief, not glitter. Prokofiev composed this score during the Second World War, and Frederick Ashton created his ballet soon afterwards, as bomb-scarred London clambered back towards normality. It’s an enchanting work, but you hear shadows behind the starlight in Prokofiev’s music.
This is one of the most glorious of all ballet scores – swooningly romantic and rompingly comic, both magical and mysterious. Jonathan Lo conducts it adoringly for the Royal Ballet’s first revival of its 2023 production, drawing out skeetering strings and melancholy woodwind, finding the magic in Prokofiev’s queasy yet alluring waltzes with their irresistible propulsion.
