Sometimes all a ballerina needs is the right partner at the ball. Tamara Rojo, dancing Cinderella this week, seemed for most of act one to be slightly absent from her role. Technically, her performance was lovely: steps gathered into exquisite rushes of movement, or drawn out in long, fluid skeins. But Rojo's ability to bring into focus the mischief and poignancy of Cinders's character was disappointingly erratic.
The rest of the cast seemed to be performing in worlds of their own, especially Alastair Marriott and Jonathan Howells as the stepsisters. Marriott was engaged in an entertainingly hangdog, jowly channelling of Frankie Howerd, but he and Howells were too intent on their own gags to flesh out the story on stage. Ashton's 1948 classic is a fragile balance of magic and pantomime, of romantic drama and classical style. In act one, it was primarily José Martín as the dancing master and Hikaru Kobayashi as the Summer Fairy who felt truest to the work: Martín for the drollery and snap of his dance comedy, Kobayashi for the delicate enchantment of her upper body and arms.
But everything changed with the appearance of Guillaume Côté, guesting from the National Ballet of Canada. Prince Charming is potentially the dullest of characters, a romantic sap in white tights, but Côté made him a hero through the quality of his on-stage chemistry with Rojo. From their first steps together, Rojo was subtly transformed. She was not only completely in role, but with Côté seemingly intuiting and anticipating her every move, she took flight. The pair purred through the rest of the ballet and everyone else settled into place.
Top of Rojo's wishlist this year ought to be a request for Côté's transfer to the Royal.
