Fairytale ballets are great for getting bums on seats. The modern formula? Make it different, but not too different. Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella, reimagined in-the-round for English National Ballet in 2019, adds narrative interventions and unconventional steps but the sweetly romantic result upends no one’s expectations of an enjoyably untaxing night at the ballet.
To his credit, Wheeldon has thought a lot about the source material, adding backstories for Cinderella (Erina Takahashi) and the prince (Francesco Gabriele Frola). At her mother’s graveside young Cinders dances playful steps underpinned with melancholy. The couple meet before the ball, the Prince disguised as a non-royal (a touch of Giselle there), a device meant to give depth to their relationship, yet despite the midnight curfew it comes without real drama or jeopardy.
There are no “ugly” sisters here (although one wears glasses, and there’s a running joke about the other’s BO), and most boldly Wheeldon does away with pumpkins and fairy godmothers, this story instead controlled by the Fates, four men lifting and swooping Cinderella, nudging her towards her destiny.
The magic is found in nature, the spirits of the seasons suddenly filling the stage – autumn’s the best, the dancers as swirling tumbling leaves, swooshing in the wind. There are bursts of colour, ballet tights fading orange into yellow (shout out to the costume dyeing team). Room-filling visuals are by designer Julian Crouch and projection designer Daniel Brodie, and what’s fabulous are the silks of puppeteer Basil Twist: long drapes that, with the pull of a cord, can balloon into an enormous tree; the train of a dress turning into a carriage.
At the ball, scores of dancers criss-cross the vast round dancefloor, they glide past the eye, waltzing to Prokofiev (played live, although the orchestra is mostly hidden). Size matters in a venue such as the Albert Hall but sometimes one dancer alone is most powerful, and the principals pull focus: Takahashi with her finely tuned grace; Frola making a sensitive Prince but exuding quiet confidence as a dancer; his high-kicking sidekick Ken Saruhashi gleaming with bright energy. Plus an amusing turn from Sarah Kundi’s tipsy stepmother.
It’s well danced, perfectly lovely, very different – yet in terms of ballet’s conventions, no different at all.
At the Royal Albert Hall, London, until 25 June
