This festive offering from Scottish Ballet comes with a little twist. Cinders! follows the plot of Cinderella but the character’s gender is flipped on different nights, subsequently changing whether Cinders meets their prince or princess. Audiences don’t know until the curtains rise which version they will see.
On this particular night, Cinders is male, danced by Bruno Micchiardi, and dreams of his princess, guest principal Jessica Fyfe. Choreographer Christopher Hampson wanted to switch the genders to question who gets to be transformed within traditional stories. As the performance draws you in, you forget the roles have been switched. Point proven.
Further tweaks to the well-known tale include the backstory. We see Cinders first as a cheeky child in a bustling tailor’s shop, before tragedy strikes and they are orphaned. Rather than an intruding stepmother, it is gaudily-dressed American heiress Mrs Thorne and her three children who arrive to take over. Instead of a fairy godmother, apparitions of Cinders’ parents appear during a surprisingly athletic rose-garden dance to help Cinders transform into appropriately glittery noble finery.
The narrative pace to begin with is enjoyably zippy, though it stumbles as the various dance configurations within the ballroom scenes are drawn out. As the lonely princess, Fyfe is both yearning and dynamic, while Micchiardi earns the audience’s sympathy by expressing Cinders’ uncertainty. There are some brilliant turns from the dukes (Yuri Marques and Thomas Edwards), expressing both courtly bombast and bemusement at the Thornes’ behaviour. And there’s a knowing send-up of ballet’s self-importance from Thorne sibling Aarón Venegas as he parades around the room before ending with a dying swan.
The set and costume design from Elin Steele is simply beautiful. Burnished bronzes, hazy purples and shiny wooden surfaces, with swirling hand-written signs and trailing leaves, form an art nouveau backdrop that is never fussy, but always luxurious.
If you’re wanting more than a gentle balletic hug, doused in regal opulence, this might not be the right show for you. But as a festive balm, Cinders! ticks all its boxes.
At Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until 31 December. Then touring until 10 February
