Cinderella @ Festival Theatre

OK, let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. It's the Mariinsky Ballet, without you having to travel to St. Petersburg to see them. It's conducted by Valery Gergiev, and it's choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky. Of course it's exquisite. Of course the dancers are superhuman. One of the glories of the choreography is its perfect poise of concept. This production provides a contemporary update, while never descending into crass satire or a coarsening of its classical base.

The heroine of this Cinderella is no wishy-washy pushover. She's a teenager. There's a sense that the rift between Cinders and her step-family is clumsiness not cruelty: down to age difference and teenage isolation. Like a million other teenage girls, Cinders is alone in her bedroom inventing dance routines. A lesser choreographer might have been tempted to extend into X-Factor territory, especially when the Prince encourages Cinders to strut her stuff before the court. The strength of this production is that it hints, but never goes for the cheapening shot. Similarly, the step-family are ridiculed for vanity, but never taken into farce. 

But ultimately, it's all about the grace of the dancers. Rarely will you see 'bad dancing' done so elegantly as by these step-sisters, and the step-mother is wonderfully vain, energetic and dominating. The lead males - the Prince and the Seasons - are bold, dynamic and characterful. The court scenes are stunning throughout, while the solo of Cinders blossoming to her full potential brings a lump to the throat.

In the final scene, the lovers are poised between their teenage lives and their adult ones. The elegant, weightless grace of Cinderella (in the performance this reviewer saw, played by Ekaterina Osmolkina) repeatedly shocks the viewer by taking shapes of such beauty they leave you breathless. The curtain closes: not on a happy ending, but a beginning. [Mark Harding]