Ashton's Cinderella - new Royal Ballet production

[alison]

I prefer the score to (that for) R&J, but I can understand that it takes some getting used to.  For me, I love its ... ethereality, perhaps?

[ctas]

Put me down as another person loving the score! Went to Sweden to see Tamara Rojo’s Cinderella last year and while the production was interesting the music was so thrilling to hear live again. Very excited to see this in a couple of weeks. 

[Odyssey]

I strongly suggest repeated listening to the score. It has become one of my favourites, and I would definitely put it on a par with Romeo and Juliet.  The recent Insight, focussing on just two solos, emphasised the genius of Ashton in working with this score. 

[AnneL]

Yes, I totally agree - on a par with R and J. 

[LACAD]

I recall a friend saying Prokofiev’s score for Cinderella sounds a bit like a beautiful machine that’s just slightly broken. 
 

To me it reflects the anxiety of the story, showing up at the party but knowing you’ll have to leg it come midnight!

[JohnS]

Very pleased to see Marienela Nunez and the Cinderella advertising and hoping it all helps with ticket sales:

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp0cyJUvL_x/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

 

[Blossom]

16 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

Sorry to be awkward, but I rather like the score!Having said that, when I first saw the ballet in 1958 i wasn't enthusiastic, particularly disliking the big minor key waltz in the ball scene.I wonder if it's just a case of expecting something 'prettier' to go along with our ideas of the Cinderella story? Prokofiev  obviously didn't have the same idea and I find his sharper and rather more melancholic take on the story refreshing. 

I never used to be keen on the score but I think I like it more having got to know Prokofiev’s ‘palette of sound’ through MacMillan’s R&J

[FionaM]

On 15/03/2023 at 08:23, Odyssey said:

I think it unlikely that she would be coaching a role she herself would appear in, in the same season- I can’t think of any recent examples of this happening, but I know some with more extensive knowledge may put me right.  I’m also hopeful that Clare Calvert  and  Yuhi Choi will get an opportunity.

IIRC Laura was coaching Countess Larisch in the recent Mayerling run (as seen in the insight) when she was performing both that role and Mary Vetsera 

[Odyssey]

3 minutes ago, FionaE said:

IIRC Laura was coaching Countess Larisch in the recent Mayerling run (as seen in the insight) when she was performing both that role and Mary Vetsera 

Thank you. I stand corrected. Interesting coincidence that it was also Laura who was coaching a role she was due to dance .

[FionaM]

25 minutes ago, Odyssey said:

Thank you. I stand corrected. Interesting coincidence that it was also Laura who was coaching a role she was due to dance .

she’s been featured on and off-stage a lot this season!!!

[FLOSS]

Prokofiev learned a great deal about writing scores for full length ballets from working on the score for Romeo and Juliet. The score for Romeo  and Juliet was devised for what turned out to be the greatest of the Soviet dramballets. Cinderella on the other hand owes a great deal to the conventions  of the nineteenth century ballet repertory. Its libretto follows the model provided by those ballets. Prokofiev produced a score which is very  aware of the debt to the formality of the late nineteenth century tradition. This is a theme which Ashton picks up and uses in his choreography. Even  with the Step sisters usually performed as travsti roles, part of a long standing theatrical tradition rather than British pantomime, it is a ballet about dance and has classical dance at its centre.

 

Ashton gives us  his take on classical dance vocabulary's ability to express emotional states as in Cinderella's first act solo with the broom; create and express character as evidenced by his choreography for the Jester and the sisters. Above all he displays his profound knowledge of classical vocabulary and empathy with the classical tradition as demonstrated in his use of Petipa's vocabulary and style in his own choreography. In this ballet Ashton displays the technical skill and creative imagination which led Karsavina to say of him that he was blood of Petipa's blood and bone of his bone. The choreography for the Season Fairies is brilliantly inventive  as is the first act choreography for the twelve strong corps de ballet, but for me the high point of the ballet is the act two ballroom pas de deux for Cinderella and her Prince which if it were the only piece of classical choreography in the entire ballet would be worth the price of admission.

 

Following Prokofiev''s musical cues Ashton gives his dancers and audiences a twentieth century take on the nineteenth century classical tradition. I find the slightly acidic dissonances in the score totally appropriate to the story and its characters. In fact I think that the score for Cinderella is just as theatrically effective as that for Romeo and Juliet and far more structurally sure of itself. Fortunately for us all the score was written at a time when Prokofiev had relative artistic freedom.

 

I can't help noting that Ashton  produced Scenes de Ballet and Cinderella. at a point in his career he was actively engaged in an artistic crusade to  ensure that classically based dance rather than Helpmann style expressionism was established as the basis for the company's future creative activity. We have to remember that the world of ballet in the twenties and thirties was one in which choreographers were expected to use new music fpr their ballets as a matter of course. Although Lambert was on hand to provide advice on all things musical and would have objected to music  which he considered third rate Ashton was his own man. He had been exposed to quite a bit of new music whether by attending performance by the Ballets Russes or while he worked for the Ida Rubinstein company. According to his own account he chose the Stravinsky score for Scenes after hearing it on the radio. I am nor sure how he became aware of the Cinderella score but as it was  written and had its premiere at a time when we were allies with the USSR it is probable that a lot of people in the West knew about it. Elvin who by 1948 was a member of the company would certainly have known about it.

 

It seems very apt to me that Ashton should use scores by Stravinsky and Prokofiev for what could be described as his "manifesto" ballets in which he had set out to establish the continued value of the classical tradition in dance . What better way to do it than to set nineteenth century classically based dance steps to scores by two composers who had once been the enfants terrible of the world of music.

 

Cinderella is a muc

[capybara]

1 hour ago, FionaE said:

she’s been featured on and off-stage a lot this season!!!

And quite right too!

[jmhopton]

Rather off topic but thinking of Cinderella starting at the end of March and continuing through April makes me think of the RB new season announcement which is usually made in March/April. Has anybody any idea when the announcement will be made this year?

[Silke H]

Additional casting has been added on the website for performances up to 19th April:

- Fairy Goodmother (Kaneko, Mendizabal, Magri, Hamilton, Buvoli

- Stepsisters (Acri + Avis, Gartside + Hay, Junker + Whitehead, Arestis + McNally

[Silke H]

And I have received an email from ROH that Matthew Ball will replace Cesar Corrales (dancing with Yasmine Naghdi) and Nicol Edmonds will replace Marcelino Sambé (dancing with Akane Takada)

[Guest oncnp]

3 minutes ago, jmhopton said:

Rather off topic but thinking of Cinderella starting at the end of March and continuing through April makes me think of the RB new season announcement which is usually made in March/April. Has anybody any idea when the announcement will be made this year?

Was April 6 last year so first or second week of April I hope

[capybara]

10 hours ago, Silke H said:

Additional casting has been added on the website for performances up to 19th April:

- Fairy Goodmother (Kaneko, Mendizabal, Magri, Hamilton, Buvoli

- Stepsisters (Acri + Avis, Gartside + Hay, Junker + Whitehead, Arestis + McNally

 

10 hours ago, Silke H said:

And I have received an email from ROH that Matthew Ball will replace Cesar Corrales (dancing with Yasmine Naghdi) and Nicol Edmonds will replace Marcelino Sambé (dancing with Akane Takada)

SilkeH - this information is also upthread!!!

[Silke H]

11 hours ago, capybara said:

 

SilkeH - this information is also upthread!!!

Thanks @capybara I couldn't see the Cinderella thread hence "starting" one, must've had my blinders on.  happy for the moderators to delete the one I started

[Guest oncnp]

Nice article in today's Times (see Links) with Marianela Nuñez

Edited March 18, 2023 by oncnp

[capybara]

1 hour ago, oncnp said:

Nice article in today's Times (see Links) with Marianela Nuñez

And, amazingly, I managed to access this on my phone without encountering a paywall.

[Linnzi5]

3 hours ago, oncnp said:

Nice article in today's Times (see Links) with Marianela Nuñez

Thanks. I really enjoyed reading that.

[Sim]

1 hour ago, capybara said:

And, amazingly, I managed to access this on my phone without encountering a paywall.

Ditto.  A friend sent me the FT interview with Carlos Acosta....appropriately, nothing is free with the FT so I can never access any of their articles.  This friend subscribes so is allowed a certain amount of 'shared articles' per month.

[annamk]

29 minutes ago, Sim said:

Ditto.  A friend sent me the FT interview with Carlos Acosta....appropriately, nothing is free with the FT so I can never access any of their articles.  This friend subscribes so is allowed a certain amount of 'shared articles' per month.

I've found that if I google the headline of the FT article I can nearly always get behind the paywall. 

 

[Ian Macmillan]

..... and that's how the Link got there this morning.

[rosefairy]

I just read the article, now I'm even more excited about Cinderella! I've been a forum member for a year now, even if I rarely post, I always follow the discussion threads around the current ballet productions and now, I can finally say that this is a production I will be watching live in Covent Garden! I'll be in London for 4 nights from April 4th to April 8th and will see Nela and Vadim on the 5th🥰

 

I'm travelling alone, but a friend of mine will be in London at the same time and she knows Nela personally (she is good friends with some of Nelas closest friends in London, but currently lives in Germany like me) so I'm hoping there's a chance, if even a slim one, that I'll be able to join them for a coffee break or something like that. It would be a dream to get to know and talk to Nela and her other friends/supporters for an hour or so, but of course she is super busy and I would also understand if her schedule didn't allow.

 

What me and my friend will definitely be doing is visiting Stage Door after the performance. Hoping to meet Vadim there too! If I wanted to bring a little present to Stage Door without knowing them well, what would be appropriate? Flowers, chocolate, something else?😊

 

Since many of you know a lot about both London and ballet, I wanted to also ask if you have any recs for me about sightseeing and shopping? Already on my list are White Lodge and the Dorich House museum in Richmond Park. Also shops like Freed, Bloch and Capezio in Covent Garden. But aside from that, are there maybe any shops for dance related books or keepsakes (things like old magazines, postcards, posters...)? 

 

Sorry if this is diverting from the thread topic too much, I think it probably is. I'll open a seperate thread tomorrow asking specifically for travel tips I think.

 

[capybara]

It's very sweet of you to want to bring presents to the Stage Door, @rosefairy, but, from what I have observed over the years, Vadim in particular often gets given quite a lot of chocolate or other food.

Flowers are best delivered in advance for presentation on stage. Male dancers can now get them too and it doesn't matter how big or small the bouquet is - it's the thought which counts.

 

[cavycapers]

Hi, does anyone know the running time if Cinderella please, incl intervals?

[Guest oncnp]

I think this was answered in the Cinderella thread

 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by oncnp

[LinMM]

It would be nice to have an exact running time though saying “it’s under three hours” could mean that in reality it finishes anywhere between 10 and 10.30 pm!! 

 

[Guest oncnp]

Gramilano has an interview with Tom Pye talking about, among other things, Cinderella. In tomorrow's links I'm sure.  

[CCL]

Back to the score… I absolutely love it and find it impossible not to cry during the overture.  I can’t wait to see Cinderella on the 15th April - I’m taking my mum to see Francesca Hayward as a late Christmas present.

[Fonty]

21 hours ago, rosefairy said:

What me and my friend will definitely be doing is visiting Stage Door after the performance. Hoping to meet Vadim there too! If I wanted to bring a little present to Stage Door without knowing them well, what would be appropriate? Flowers, chocolate, something else?😊

 

 

 

I don't know if there are any ex or current professional dancers on this forum who could help you with this.  I am guessing that as they are all so slender, they don't eat much chocolate!  Besides which, that is very much a personal taste.  I love chocolate, but I am very particular about the brand.  

 

With regard to things to see while in London, a separate thread might be a good idea.  A bit difficult to suggest anything without knowing your interests.  

 

[rosefairy]

1 hour ago, Fonty said:

 

I don't know if there are any ex or current professional dancers on this forum who could help you with this.  I am guessing that as they are all so slender, they don't eat much chocolate!  Besides which, that is very much a personal taste.  I love chocolate, but I am very particular about the brand.  

 

With regard to things to see while in London, a separate thread might be a good idea.  A bit difficult to suggest anything without knowing your interests.  

 

 

I think I'll ask my friend about this, she should know a bit more about Marianelas personal preferences when it comes to these little presents!  Good idea, I'm opening the separate thread right now before I forget about it again😊