Cinderella (comic ballet)
Encyclopedia
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, using Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's "Cinderella" music, and re-choreographed by choreographer Frederick Ashton
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at...
, is a comic ballet
Comic ballet
Comic ballet is a subcategory of ballet, and denotes a dramatic work of a light or comic nature.Comic ballets include:* Cinderella* Coppélia* Don Quixote* La Fille Mal Gardée* Pineapple Poll* Pirates of Penzance - The Ballet!...
.
Ballet productions
| Choreography | Frederick Ashton Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at... |
| Music | Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century... |
| Design | Jean-Denis Malcles (scenery and costumes) |
| Libretto | Frederick Ashton (after the fairy tale by Charles Perrault Charles Perrault Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known include Le Petit Chaperon rouge , Cendrillon , Le Chat Botté and La Barbe bleue... ) |
| First Production | Sadler's Wells Ballet, Royal Opera House Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The... , London, 23 December 1948 |
| Principal Dancers | Moira Shearer Moira Shearer Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy , was an internationally famous Scottish ballet dancer and actress.-Early life:She was born Moira Shearer King in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the daughter of actor Harold V. King... (Cinderella), Michael Somes Michael Somes Michael George Somes CBE , was a leading English ballet dancer. He was a principal danseur of the Royal Ballet, London, and was the frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn.... (Prince), Frederick Ashton and Robert Helpmann Robert Helpmann Sir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer... (Stepsisters), Alexander Grant Alexander Grant (dancer) Alexander Grant was a ballet dancer noted as a founder member of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and as a dancer with The Royal Ballet.- Overview :... (The Jester) |
| Other Productions | Royal Ballet (new production, restaged and revised by Frederick Ashton); with Margot Fonteyn Margot Fonteyn Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, DBE , was an English ballerina of the 20th century. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time... (Cinderella), David Blair David Blair (dancer) David Blair was a renowned British ballet dancer and a leading star of the Royal Ballet company in London during the 1950s and 1960s.... (Prince), Frederick Ashton Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton OM, CH, CBE was a leading international dancer and choreographer. He is most noted as the founder choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London, but also worked as a director and choreographer of opera, film and theatre revues.-Early life:Ashton was born at... and Robert Helpmann Robert Helpmann Sir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer... (Stepsisters); London, 23 December 1965 |
| Other Choreographic Treatments of the Story | François Albert Decombe (London, 1822); Marius Petipa Marius Petipa Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived.... , Enrico Cecchetti Enrico Cecchetti Enrico Cecchetti was an Italian ballet dancer, mime, and founder of the Cecchetti method. The son of two dancers from Civitanova Marche, he was born in the costuming room of the Teatro Tordinona in Rome. After an illustrious career as a dancer in Europe, he went to dance for the Imperial Ballet in... , and Lev Ivanov Lev Ivanov Lev Ivanovich Ivanov was a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer and later, Second Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet.... (St. Petersburg, 1893) see Cinderella (Fitinhof-Schell) Cinderella (Fitinhof-Schell) Cinderella - ballet-féerie in 3 Acts, with choreography by Enrico Cecchetti and Lev Ivanov , with the production being supervised under the counsel and instruction of Marius Petipa. Music by Baron Boris Vietinghoff-Scheel... |
Plot outline
Ashton's Cinderella is his own realized dream of a Petipa ballet, and the ballet itself enacts the realization of dreams, notably Cinderella's own. When we first see her she is a demi-caractere dancer dreaming of being a ballerinaBallerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
— that seems to be the balletic point of her solo with the broomstick in the kitchen — and it is as a ballerina that she magically enters the ballroom, stepping en pointe down the stairs and advancing in pas de bourree to the front of the stage. Back in the kitchen she recalls the slipper (or rather the pointe shoe) that she carries in her apron; the shoe is the clue to her dream and persuades her it was true. The Prince finds Cinderella, but in his arms she discovers her own identity as a ballerina: her dream of herself has been realized.
Origins
There are many versions of the story of Cinderella (the earliest was written down in China in the 9th century), and it has been the basis for a long list of pantomimes, operas, and ballets.The earliest Cinderella ballet proper was by Duport in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1813, although Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
's Cinderella ten years earlier had a ballet divertissement of Loves and Graces, introduced by Venus.
London's first complete Cinderella ballet was seen in 1822, the year Paris first heard Rossini's opera La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
.
Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, and Enrico Cecchetti choreographed Cinderella
Cinderella (Fitinhof-Schell)
Cinderella - ballet-féerie in 3 Acts, with choreography by Enrico Cecchetti and Lev Ivanov , with the production being supervised under the counsel and instruction of Marius Petipa. Music by Baron Boris Vietinghoff-Scheel...
for the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in 1893 to the music of Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell
Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell
Baron Boris Vietinghoff-Scheel, a.k.a. Fitinhof-Schell was a Russian composer....
— it was in this splendid production that Pierina Legnani
Pierina Legnani
Pierina Legnani was an Italian ballerina, a terre-à-terre virtuosa extraordinaire, considered one of the greatest ballerinas of all time.-Career:...
first performed in Russia her celebrated feat of 32 fouettes— but none of the choreography has survived.
Adeline Genee
Adeline Genée
Dame Adeline Genée DBE was a Danish/British ballet dancer.-Early years:Anina Kirstina Margarete Petra Jensen was born in Århus, Denmark. Her uncle, Alexandre Genée, gave her dancing lessons from the age of three. When she was eight, Alexandre and his wife, the former Antonia Zimmerman, adopted her...
first danced Cinderella at the Empire, Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
, on Twelfth Night 1906, and 29 years later to the day Andree Howard choreographed her one-act Cinderella (in which Frederick Ashton was the elegant Prince) for Rambert's Ballet Club
Rambert Dance Company
Rambert Dance Company, is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it would exert a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingdom, and today, as a contemporary dance company, it continues to be one of the...
at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate
The Mercury Theatre was a small theatre in Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill Gate, London, notable for the productions of poetic dramas between 1933 and 1956, and as the home of the Ballet Rambert until 1987.- History :...
.
The score
Sergei Prokofiev had begun composition on the score for Cinderella in 1941 but, because of the war and his opera War and PeaceWar and Peace (Prokofiev)
War and Peace is an opera in two parts , sometimes arranged as five acts, by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer and Mira Mendelson, based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy...
, the orchestration was not completed until 1944.
The music was choreographed first for the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, however it only achieved worldwide acclaim by the early 20th century, when Moscow became the...
by Rostislav Zakharov
Rostislav Zakharov
Rostislav Vladimirovich Zakharov was a Russian choreographer, dancer, ballet and opera director. He was a professor of Russian Academy of the Arts in Moscow...
in 1945 and then for the Kirov Ballet by Konstantin Sergeyev in 1946. Olga Lepeshinskaya created Cinderella in Moscow (where Ulanova, who alternated with her, had great success in the role) and Dudinskaya
Natalia Dudinskaya
Natalia Mikhailovna Dudinskaya was a Russian prima ballerina who dominated the Kirov Ballet in the 1930s and 1940s.Dudinskaya's mother was Natalia Tagliori, a ballerina coached by Enrico Cecchetti. Trained by Agrippina Vaganova, Dudinskaya matriculated from her school in 1931. She danced all the...
first danced it in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
.
Prokofiev and his collaborators were guided by Perrault's version of the story and by the great Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
ballet scores which themselves served the structure of Petipa's choreography. Prokofiev wrote that he conceived Cinderella (which he dedicated to Tchaikovsky):
- "... as a classical ballet with variationVariation (ballet)Variation or Classical Variation in ballet is a solo dance. As with an Aria in opera, which allows the singer to demonstrate his or her interpretive skills, the variation in ballet has the same function...
s, adagois, pas de deux, etc... I see Cinderella not only as a fairy-tale character but also as a real person, feeling, experiencing, and moving among us",
and again:
- "What I wished to express above all in the music of Cinderella was the poetic love of Cinderella and the Prince, the birth and flowering of that love, the obstacles in its path and finally the dream fulfilled".
Ashton's choreography
Frederick Ashton first considered the idea of composing a full-evening ballet as early as 1939 when the Vic-Wells Sleeping Princess had proved so successful, but because of the war these ambitions were shelved.Early in 1946, though, in a speech at the Soviet Theater Exhibition, de Valois said she could not wait to see the first full-length English classical ballet, and during 1946 and 1947 there were constant rumours of possible three-act ballet scores. At one point Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
' Sylvia
Sylvia (ballet)
Sylvia, originally Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique...
seemed the most likely choice (that came in 1952 and was Ashton's second full-length ballet), but in the late spring of 1948 Prokofiev's Cinderella was selected as the score Ashton would choreograph.
Ashton had heard — and liked — quite a lot of the Prokofiev music and he thought Perrault's story a good one. In the event, Ashton cut some of the music, notably the third-act scene showing the Prince's journey in search of Cinderella (a pretext for a divertissement of national dances: Ashton's comment on this was "I didn't like any of the places he went to, nor the music he wrote for them") and a shorter dance of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies after the Fairy Summer's variation in the first act. The choreography of Cinderella is Ashton's homage to the classical tradition of Petipa, as had been Symphonic Variations of two years earlier, albeit on a smaller scale. In 1948 Ashton also created Scènes de ballet
Scènes de ballet (Ashton)
Scènes de ballet is a one-act ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton, who created the ballet during 1947–48. The first performance was given at London's Royal Opera House, with music by Igor Stravinsky.-Creation, choreography and design:...
, which distilled the essence of Petipa's ballets down to just one act.
The choreography of Cinderella is full of dreams, some most definitely unfulfilled. In the ballroom, the put-upon, shy Ugly Sister — significantly Ashton's own role — performs a Petipa figure that amounts to her dream of being Odile at Siegfried's ball or the Sugar Plum Fairy. She is in fact full of choreographic dreams, and that is the clue to her character (as is the fact that she has Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
's nose). Again in the ballroom the bossy Ugly Sister does a fish-dive with her suitor, a dream of the final pas de deux in The Sleeping Beauty.
Sources
- Bremster, M. 1993. "International Dictionary of Ballet" Detroit: St James Press
ISBN 1-55862-084-2 (Vol. 1 and 2)