![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicLast night commenced the first of four ballets I've got tickets to this season for American Ballet Theatre's residence at the Met: "Cinderella," a 2004 adaptation set to Prokofiev's score by Canadian choreographer James Kudelka, who took a feminist angle and set the story in the roaring '20s. Costumes were accordingly gorgeous, all art-deco black-and-silver for the prince's ball, three-piece suits for the men (colorful and sans jackets in Act I, creamy whitish in Act III), lots of satin, earthy tones (maroon, deep greens and browns) for the fairy godmother and helpers and for Cinderella's first dance at the ball. The men's hair was slicked back and the women's done in bobs with occasional fashionable hats and kerchiefs. The "glass slipper" was a sparkling toe shoe.
There was a lot to like about "Cinderella," but I did not thoroughly enjoy it. Let it be said first of all that I went in knowing that there was no way in hell this would be among the best ballets I've seen, because a romantic fairy tale would be hard-pressed to rank alongside either "The Green Table" (Death and the maiden, need one say more?) or "The Lesson" (because that was f*cking hot) on my list. I've also suspected since seeing him in the bland "Les Sylphides" last fall that I much prefer David Hallberg in villainous roles over romantic leads, but this was my first opportunity to see him in a principal role as a principal dancer with the company, and I thought "Cinderella" would be the most accessible choice for my father, so off we went.
To start at the beginning: Act I—in which Cinderella (Gillian Murphy) daydreams in the kitchen she's forced to clean, is taunted by her stepsisters and stepmother, watches the other girls get measured for dresses and meet their escorts for the ball, and then receives finery of her own from her crone of a fairy godmother and a bunch of fairies/flowers/insects in the pumpkin patch in the backyard—was alternately creepy, boring and funny. Creepy because her daydream involves some kind of marriage with midgets, played by dancers walking on their knees in mist, so their arms were out of proportion. Boring because there were long stretches where nothing was happening, neither plot nor engaging movement. But funny too! The stepmother was a wobbling drunk who didn't do much dancing but got a lot of laughs for her antics. And one of my favorite scenes of the ballet was when the tailors, suitors and dance instructor arrive at the household to prepare the sisters for the ball, because everything was so vibrant with color and action. From our third-mezzanine seats—clear view, just far away—one of the men looked just like Christian Bale, so there's a visual for you.
Act II takes place at the ball. First come the crowds dancing in all their monochromatic glory, along with a photographer snapping shots of the socialites with a period flash-bulb camera. Maybe halfway through, four valets/tribunes enter with great fanfare to announce the arrival of the prince, who doesn't show up for his first grand entrance and comes in on the opposite side of the stage on their second attempt. The prince dances for a few moments—my God, can that boy dance when he's given the right steps, doing that leap-and-hover move that leaves people gasping in the audience—then slumps in his chair and stays in his corner with his attendants away from the action, rebuffing the inebriated stepsisters' attempts to woo him. The summary in the ABT booklet explains all of this as the prince's reluctance to hang out with a bunch of shallow partiers and goes on to describe his desire to connect with a woman of some substance, hence his attraction to Cinderella when she appears in her giant flying pumpkin, but for all that I like this interpretation, I had a hard time viewing DH's performance in that light; the prince's boredom seemed equally likely to stem from an unsympathetic contempt. There was something... Hamlet about him, if that makes sense. The problem was compounded by the fact that he falls instantly in love with Cinderella when she steps out of her carriage dressed in resplendent furs and gown—so he falls for a rich and beautiful woman he has never spoken with. And, uninterested in the fawning courtiers, he finds himself drawn to the one woman who spends the majority of a waltz ignoring him, as if it's the challenge and not the woman that's alluring. I'm not even going to dwell on the fact that her entrance was heralded by a group of fairies who drew away the other guests and then waved their wands in the Prince's face (enchanting him?) and might as well have been tossing sparkly dust and singing, "Mary Suuuuue!"
The music for the waltz was my favorite of the ballet: strings and oboes and minor chords and a strangely cinematic tone that reminded me for some reason of Casper (the Bill Pullman/Christina Ricci one). I think I may have a soft spot for waltzes. Tried uploading it for you but the protections won't allow it. :-/ Anyway, the newly-arrived Cinderella dances in the center of four pairs of autumnally-colored women—their dresses, not their skin—and dark-suited men while the prince circles around them and watches her, making intermittent moves to intercept her but always foiled, either by a shift in choreography or by her complete obliviousness to him. At last they have their pas-de-deux, and it is nice, but not electric, because as I've tried to convey, the basis (or lack thereof) for their love felt all wrong. I know, I know, fairy tale, but consider that I was explaining this to my Disney-fan dad on the train home and he agreed that theirs was a fairly lackluster romance. He also said—without any provocation from me, mind you—that the third act would have been even funnier if the prince had had his male attendants try on the slipper too.
The curtain having fallen on Cinderella huddling in a slip at one corner of the stage at midnight while the prince holds up the lone toe shoe, Act III begins with the prince and his attendants searching around the world for the mysterious girl. A screen at the back of the stage morphs from clouds to water to desert sunlight to indicate different countries and climates, and women in a variety of costumes and footwear walk, dance, ski, fly, clunk, snow-shoe, etc. past the ever-more-despairing young man. That was by far the funniest scene of the night, from barefoot beach girl to aviator (the group of valets held her horizontally and dipped and lifted her as they walked to simulate flying) to a pair of Dutch girls in clog-skates. That scene also featured some of DH's more impressive moves (but still not nearly enough!). To rush the ending: he finds Cinderella, who has been learning to dance in the kitchen with her one remaining toe shoe, and they get married and have lots of friends and live happily ever after in a modest house in the pumpkin patch.
Part of my disappointment doesn't really reflect on the ballet itself, and that's the fact that DH didn't have enough to do. A lot of the rest (aside from the larger issues of the fairy tale itself) is a matter of interpretation; I didn't get from much of the ballet what the pamphlet summary says was going on, and I don't know if that's my fault or the production's. I already explained the ambiguity of the being prince in a bad state and longing for a woman he can connect with. I had a problem too with the stepsisters, who seemed more like social misfits than sociopaths; one was comically characterized by her nearsightedness, for instance, and all that did was make me feel sorry for her. Cinderella seemed like a pretty spunky and adaptable young lady who is self-possessed from Act I through III despite teasing from her step-family, but the myopic sister struck me as a bit of a tragic geek who wasn't beautiful, couldn't dance well, didn't quite grasp social conventions, and fell for a man who loved someone else. She felt more like a Cinderella character to me than Cinderella did. *shrug* She got most of the laughs of the night, especially in the last scene when she launches herself amorously at the groom and is caught by her long-suffering escort in a parody of those classic ballet lifts.
Oh, another random thing I liked: There were a dozen pumpkin-headed men assisting the fairy godmother who arranged themselves in a crouched circle and then popped up, one by one, in imitation of a clock to signal midnight. Very cute. Don't know how they constructed the pumpkin-heads so the dancers could see, but they didn't have visible eye-holes or anything, so it was a very cool effect.
Next up: "Giselle" on Thursday, with Julie Kent and José Manuel Carreño. Yay, about one year since going to the ABT for the first time and feeling dancer-literate!
There was a lot to like about "Cinderella," but I did not thoroughly enjoy it. Let it be said first of all that I went in knowing that there was no way in hell this would be among the best ballets I've seen, because a romantic fairy tale would be hard-pressed to rank alongside either "The Green Table" (Death and the maiden, need one say more?) or "The Lesson" (because that was f*cking hot) on my list. I've also suspected since seeing him in the bland "Les Sylphides" last fall that I much prefer David Hallberg in villainous roles over romantic leads, but this was my first opportunity to see him in a principal role as a principal dancer with the company, and I thought "Cinderella" would be the most accessible choice for my father, so off we went.
To start at the beginning: Act I—in which Cinderella (Gillian Murphy) daydreams in the kitchen she's forced to clean, is taunted by her stepsisters and stepmother, watches the other girls get measured for dresses and meet their escorts for the ball, and then receives finery of her own from her crone of a fairy godmother and a bunch of fairies/flowers/insects in the pumpkin patch in the backyard—was alternately creepy, boring and funny. Creepy because her daydream involves some kind of marriage with midgets, played by dancers walking on their knees in mist, so their arms were out of proportion. Boring because there were long stretches where nothing was happening, neither plot nor engaging movement. But funny too! The stepmother was a wobbling drunk who didn't do much dancing but got a lot of laughs for her antics. And one of my favorite scenes of the ballet was when the tailors, suitors and dance instructor arrive at the household to prepare the sisters for the ball, because everything was so vibrant with color and action. From our third-mezzanine seats—clear view, just far away—one of the men looked just like Christian Bale, so there's a visual for you.
Act II takes place at the ball. First come the crowds dancing in all their monochromatic glory, along with a photographer snapping shots of the socialites with a period flash-bulb camera. Maybe halfway through, four valets/tribunes enter with great fanfare to announce the arrival of the prince, who doesn't show up for his first grand entrance and comes in on the opposite side of the stage on their second attempt. The prince dances for a few moments—my God, can that boy dance when he's given the right steps, doing that leap-and-hover move that leaves people gasping in the audience—then slumps in his chair and stays in his corner with his attendants away from the action, rebuffing the inebriated stepsisters' attempts to woo him. The summary in the ABT booklet explains all of this as the prince's reluctance to hang out with a bunch of shallow partiers and goes on to describe his desire to connect with a woman of some substance, hence his attraction to Cinderella when she appears in her giant flying pumpkin, but for all that I like this interpretation, I had a hard time viewing DH's performance in that light; the prince's boredom seemed equally likely to stem from an unsympathetic contempt. There was something... Hamlet about him, if that makes sense. The problem was compounded by the fact that he falls instantly in love with Cinderella when she steps out of her carriage dressed in resplendent furs and gown—so he falls for a rich and beautiful woman he has never spoken with. And, uninterested in the fawning courtiers, he finds himself drawn to the one woman who spends the majority of a waltz ignoring him, as if it's the challenge and not the woman that's alluring. I'm not even going to dwell on the fact that her entrance was heralded by a group of fairies who drew away the other guests and then waved their wands in the Prince's face (enchanting him?) and might as well have been tossing sparkly dust and singing, "Mary Suuuuue!"
The music for the waltz was my favorite of the ballet: strings and oboes and minor chords and a strangely cinematic tone that reminded me for some reason of Casper (the Bill Pullman/Christina Ricci one). I think I may have a soft spot for waltzes. Tried uploading it for you but the protections won't allow it. :-/ Anyway, the newly-arrived Cinderella dances in the center of four pairs of autumnally-colored women—their dresses, not their skin—and dark-suited men while the prince circles around them and watches her, making intermittent moves to intercept her but always foiled, either by a shift in choreography or by her complete obliviousness to him. At last they have their pas-de-deux, and it is nice, but not electric, because as I've tried to convey, the basis (or lack thereof) for their love felt all wrong. I know, I know, fairy tale, but consider that I was explaining this to my Disney-fan dad on the train home and he agreed that theirs was a fairly lackluster romance. He also said—without any provocation from me, mind you—that the third act would have been even funnier if the prince had had his male attendants try on the slipper too.
The curtain having fallen on Cinderella huddling in a slip at one corner of the stage at midnight while the prince holds up the lone toe shoe, Act III begins with the prince and his attendants searching around the world for the mysterious girl. A screen at the back of the stage morphs from clouds to water to desert sunlight to indicate different countries and climates, and women in a variety of costumes and footwear walk, dance, ski, fly, clunk, snow-shoe, etc. past the ever-more-despairing young man. That was by far the funniest scene of the night, from barefoot beach girl to aviator (the group of valets held her horizontally and dipped and lifted her as they walked to simulate flying) to a pair of Dutch girls in clog-skates. That scene also featured some of DH's more impressive moves (but still not nearly enough!). To rush the ending: he finds Cinderella, who has been learning to dance in the kitchen with her one remaining toe shoe, and they get married and have lots of friends and live happily ever after in a modest house in the pumpkin patch.Part of my disappointment doesn't really reflect on the ballet itself, and that's the fact that DH didn't have enough to do. A lot of the rest (aside from the larger issues of the fairy tale itself) is a matter of interpretation; I didn't get from much of the ballet what the pamphlet summary says was going on, and I don't know if that's my fault or the production's. I already explained the ambiguity of the being prince in a bad state and longing for a woman he can connect with. I had a problem too with the stepsisters, who seemed more like social misfits than sociopaths; one was comically characterized by her nearsightedness, for instance, and all that did was make me feel sorry for her. Cinderella seemed like a pretty spunky and adaptable young lady who is self-possessed from Act I through III despite teasing from her step-family, but the myopic sister struck me as a bit of a tragic geek who wasn't beautiful, couldn't dance well, didn't quite grasp social conventions, and fell for a man who loved someone else. She felt more like a Cinderella character to me than Cinderella did. *shrug* She got most of the laughs of the night, especially in the last scene when she launches herself amorously at the groom and is caught by her long-suffering escort in a parody of those classic ballet lifts.
Oh, another random thing I liked: There were a dozen pumpkin-headed men assisting the fairy godmother who arranged themselves in a crouched circle and then popped up, one by one, in imitation of a clock to signal midnight. Very cute. Don't know how they constructed the pumpkin-heads so the dancers could see, but they didn't have visible eye-holes or anything, so it was a very cool effect.
Next up: "Giselle" on Thursday, with Julie Kent and José Manuel Carreño. Yay, about one year since going to the ABT for the first time and feeling dancer-literate!
