Cinderella
English National Ballet’s 60th birthday
London Coliseum
The post-second world war decade saw a flourishing of independent ballet companies all over Europe. Those that strove to emulate the Ballets Russes provided an alternative to the companies that aimed at nurturing home-grown talent — such as the Ballet Rambert and what became the Royal Ballet in the UK. It was in this context that English National Ballet (formerly Festival Ballet, London’s Festival Ballet and London Festival Ballet) held its first performance 60 years ago last Saturday. A significant anniversary indeed, particularly because none of the other independent European companies created around the same time has managed to survive so long.
It is difficult to pinpoint the factors that contributed to such successful longevity. Some say it’s down to the appeal of the various international stars who worked with the company — from founders Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, to Galina Samsova, Rudolf Nureyev, Eva Evdokimova, Peter Schaufuss and a thousand other equally great ones. Others claim that a major attraction has always been the company’s ‘alternative’ repertoire, which encompassed titles rarely seen elsewhere in the country. After all, London Festival Ballet was one of the companies that kept most of the Diaghilev repertoire alive, as well as popularising works that had long remained exclusive to national cultures — as in the case of the Romantic ballet La Sylphide, the Western popularity of which grew significantly after the staging by the company’s former director Peter Schaufuss. Finally, others regard the extensive touring that the company embarks on every season as the winning factor — for they truly bring ballet to almost everyone.
Whatever the reason, ENB, as it is known to most balletomanes, remains, under the winning directorship of Wayne Eagling, a company that, after 60 years, still stands out for its alluring and captivating freshness.
On Saturday, the scheduled performance of Cinderella was preceded by a brief and funny speech by managing director Craig Hassall, and by an unsurprising but good orchestral rendition of the birthday song, complete with audience participation. To some, Prokofiev’s Cinderella might sound an odd choice for a summer celebration, given that theatrical adaptations of the old fairy tale are traditionally associated with Christmas holidays. Yet Cinderella has long been one of the company’s most successful summer titles — indeed, my first encounter with London Festival Ballet at the very beginning of the 1970s was at a performance of that work in August at the Festival Hall.
The one presented at the London Coliseum on Saturday — Michael Corder’s 1996 creation — is a more recent choreographic adaptation of the Soviet ballet than the one I saw in my early teens. When I first reviewed it, I expressed reservations about the dramaturgy of the new staging, and I am afraid that those reservations remain. Corder, who explains his thinking in a beautiful programme note, opted for a reading that doesn’t delve into either the comic or the dark tones of Perrault’s original text. In line with both Prokofiev’s idea and the old English pantomime tradition, he keeps the character of the father, but reduces greatly his narrative functions. The stepmother, too, loses her powerful supremacy over the two omnipresent stepsisters, although these are not grotesquely ugly or evil. As for Cinders, she, too, has little dramatic depth — no desperation punctuates the long solo she performs dreaming of the ball. Such lack of pure drama stems mostly from the fact that, although Prokofiev’s narrative structure is more or less carefully preserved — Corder’s version includes the Prince’s around-the-world search for Cinders in the final act — most of the prescribed mime scenes have been replaced by purely danced numbers.
Choreographically, the work is sleek and relies on a complex use of leitmotiv, which edges frequently and dangerously on the border of repetitiveness. Yet there are some superb moments, which restore the hopes and faith of all those who thought the British choreographic tradition was dead. There are also some nice quotations for the connoisseurs, as in the case of the references to the celebrated Pas de Quatre in the stepsisters’ dance in Act II. But they are sensitively chosen in-jokes that never slip into the derivative. The cast I saw, led by Erina Takahashi and Dmitri Gruzdyev as the Prince, showed that 60 years on the company is still maintaining very fine standards.
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