Sir David Bintley
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Lowry, Salford
March 6-8, 2025: 2 hrs 40 mins
I’ve loved David Bintley’s Cinderella since I first saw it, almost 15 years ago. It has everything a fairytale ballet should: lavish scene-painting, magical transformations, beautiful ensembles, children… and a strong touch of comedy.
The visual impact – a dingy kitchen for the first Act; sparkles and stars everywhere once the Fairy Godmother (last night Daria Stanciulescu) takes over; a coach of spun silver for Cinders to go to the ball; animal costumes for the frog coachman and lizard footmen, and little people as mice pages; then a glittering ball, and an ingenious monster mechanism of gears and wheels to represent the fateful clock at midnight. They are all down to the brilliant design skills of John Macfarlane, and a large part of what makes the show so enchanting.
It takes some technical wizardry to make it all work and, after an extended first interval before the ball scene, the clock (when it appeared) seemed to sway a little more than it should have. But such a little thing did not detract from the beauties of the ballet itself.
Bintley’s skill with his circling, gliding and weaving corps de ballet in the big waltz (first as stars against the night sky and then at the climax of the ball) and other stage-filling moments is breathtaking: his tender, lyrical touch in the pas de deux a thing of joy. And the characterisation of the step-sisters, two very different but equally funny roles, combines displays of real dancing skills with opportunities for comedy that ballerinas only rarely see.
There is a quartet of fairy princesses, who appear in the early part with a portrayal of the four seasons, then reappear in the ball; and some nice cameo roles for men in the first act – plenty of costume changes all round, which call on the resource of a big classical ballet company as rarely seen these days. And of course you need a big orchestra to do justice to Prokoviev’s score. All in all, it was and remains an expensive thing to stage, so we should be glad BRB continues to do so.
This is a company with a number of excellent young dancers, making their mark. We saw that in the casting on Press night: Enrique Bejarano Vidal, with National Ballet School of Cuba training behind him, is both a brilliant soloist and a considerate and capable partner. The pas de deux featuring Vidal as the Prince and the dainty Beatrice Parma as Cinderella were models of that skill.
Amelia Thompson and Rachele Pizzillo (as Autumn and Winter) made crisp and lively contributions alongside Reina Fuchigami and Celine Gittens as Spring and Summer (together making a fine quartet).
Laetitia Lo Sardo made a good fist of the unenviable (but dance-worthy) role of the Stepmother, and Gus Payne’s Dancing Master was a clever cameo. That comes in a “dance class” scene where the Stepsisters (Eilis Small and Olivia Chang Clarke) have their chance to deliberately dance badly, much enjoyed; but the best fun came at the ball, where they almost stole the whole show.
More info and tickets here
