One would have to work hard at not enjoying any production of Cinderella since the tale is timeless and the outcome, joyous. Christopher Wheeldon’s production, initially made jointly for Dutch National and San Francisco Ballets in 2012, keeps all the story’s magic (although ditching the fairy godmother) embellished by several innovations of his own. His production was originally made for proscenium settings but, in 2019, it was translated to the cavernous “in-the-round” space of the Royal Albert Hall. It is a case, quite literally, of a square peg not quite fitting the round hole.
Early summer has seemed incomplete over recent years without English National Ballet’s annual season at The Royal Albert Hall with ballet seen as if it is the hole in a polo mint. It requires adept circular thinking, which Derek Deane achieved successfully in his various productions (Swan Lake and Strictly Gershwin spring readily to mind). The redesign of a work initially made for a traditional theatrical setting needs a lot of adaption and compromises must be made when trading off the fourth wall for a goldfish bowl; where choreography designed to be seen only from the front must work when viewed from 360 degrees.
Some effects were inevitably muted by this much-expanded sense of theatre; in particular, one felt the loss of intimacy at the kitchen fireside (the hearth seemed so far away, it was indistinct) and in the pas de deux between Cinderella and her Prince (unusually he has a name, Guillaume) and the significance of the benevolent spirit of Cinderella’s mother via the tree that grew over her grave was also less clear when compared to the original proscenium production. The fairy godmother was replaced by four Fates who manipulated both Cinderella’s journey and acted as stagehands moving the set around between scenes.
These multifarious trade-offs did not impact a performance that was still replete with colour, humour and romance. And in some instances, the “in-the-round” staging enhanced the effect: the ballroom scene was almost an immersive experience since we felt like guests seated at the edge of a dance floor packed with exquisitely costumed dancers performing just in front of us. Gavin Sutherland returned to conduct the ENB Philharmonic, largely unseen high above the stage, in a joyous performance of Prokofiev’s luscious score.
As Cinderella, Erina Takahashi used all her experience and intelligent artistry to convey a rich mix of fragility, stoicism, optimism, and a thirst for romance, demonstrating a power of expression that captivated even this cavernous space. It is more than 20 years since I first saw Takahashi lead an ENB production at the Royal Albert Hall and she appears, agelessly, the same now as back then. With the loss of Isaac Hernandez and Jeffrey Cirio (respectively to San Francisco and Boston Ballets), Francesco Gabriele Frola has become ENB’s premier classical dancer (recently earning his second successive nomination as Best Male Dancer in the National Dance Awards) and he gave a strong account as Guillaume, both technically and artistically. The romantic duets have been beautifully crafted by Wheeldon and although the huge space robbed them of an essential intimacy they were nonetheless danced with charm and chemistry by Takahashi and Frola.
This narrative provides a back story for both Cinderella, showing the happiness of her infancy ending with her mother’s death, and Prince Guillaume’s journey from joker to jack of hearts, focusing on the strength of his friendship with Benjamin (another arresting performance by Ken Saruhashi), overseen by their dancing teacher, Madame Mansard (Laura Hussey) with her large comedy cleavage representative of the English pantomime humour that Wheeldon infused into his production. Sarah Kundi also rose to the comedic challenge as the stepmother Hortense, not so much wicked in this production as careless and prone to an excess of alcohol. She excelled in both her drunken ballroom pas de quatre with a pair of wine glasses and her henpecked husband (James Streeter), striving to maintain some dignity against all the odds, and in the hilarious morning-after scene where she threw up in a cooking pot.
The best of Wheeldon’s twists is to have de-uglified the stepsisters, either of whom could easily be a match for Guillaume. The older sibling, Edwina, is, however, a man-eater with halitosis who manages to bed four courtiers after the ball, a role given full vent by the humour and allure of Fernanda Oliveira. The bespectacled younger sister, Clementine, reprised from the 2019 premiere by Katja Khaniukova, is almost as much a victim as Cinderella (harried by both Hortense and Edwina) and she is rewarded with her own charming parallel romance with Benjamin. Although Khaniukova portrayed the sweetness and delicate humour of Clementine with appealing panache, I can’t help but feel that she has been overlooked in the casting of Cinderella for this season. It’s a role for which she is perfectly suited.
