Scottish Ballet's Cinderella at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal


‘Challenge’ is a persistent word in Scottish Ballet’s Artistic Director Ashley Page’s vocabulary. It encapsulates his artistic credo. He wants to drive on his talented dancers with challenging and exciting new works. After his first ever full-length ballet, The Nutcracker (2003), Page attempts another full-length Christmas treat.

Cinderella is a rags-to-riches story full of magic and love. Or so it should be. With Prokofiev’s thrilling score and designer Antony McDonald’s vibrant French eighteenth century chic decor, Page wants his choreography to define character and tell the story. He succeeds in his tableau (expertly lit by master lighting designer Peter Mumford) with characters dressed in bright colours detaching from and entwining with others dressed in black and white − especially in the night garden scenes of the Prince’s Ball; Page skilfully fills the stage with choreographic and dramatic meaning and contrast.

However, many intimate and significant moments are lost. At the Ball, the Stepsisters display a surprising lack of jealousy towards Cinderella as she gets her man. They’re just not the ludicrously embarrassing scene-stealing buffoons we would like them to be. They appear too easily content with the attentions of a pair of camp courtiers − one being Paul Liburd’s self-important Dancing Master whose elegant dancing defies gravity. Cristo Vivancos as the Prince has a powerful presence and he dances magnificently, but we are never convinced that he is really bored before Cinderella arrives at the Ball nor truly in love when she does.

Unfortunately, McDonald’s sets tend to dwarf the dancers − gigantic brickwork, garish over-sized portrait of the Stepmother, and a monstrous Christmas tree-like pile of washing up for poor Cinders. Monumental moments, on the other hand, are underplayed − the Godmother’s supernatural smoke-and-bang entrance through the fireplace, our first glimpse of Cinderella’s party tutu − and the surreptitious giving to Cinderella of her dance slippers for the Ball doesn’t even match the excitement of every would-be ballerina’s first pointe shoe purchase. Page and McDonald’s vision does have charm − simple projected flowers appearing magically in the garden, Cinderella dancing with a portrait of her mother, and her flying to the Ball in a pumpkin airship. However, we have to wait for the return from the ball for our first real laugh. Regrettably, humour is quickly subdued as things turn even more Hammer horror − secret door, glowing red-eyed portrait, desperate Stepsisters that saw and machete their toes off (no more pointe work for them), and a bleak and miserable ending for the Stepsisters and their mother. Despite the need for seasonal goodwill, Cinders’ joy does not, unfortunately, lead to forgiveness.

The problem with Page’s somewhat complicated take on Cinderella is that it is difficult to see who he is aiming it at. Those looking for a Christmas spectacle of love and magic may well find it a challenge.



Michael Scott, Dance Expression Magazine February 2006




Above: Claire Robertson as Cinderella and Cristo Vivancos as The Prince in Page’s Cinderella, sponsored by Bank of Scotland.  Photograph by Bill Cooper.

Centre: Paul Liburd as The Dancing Master and Glauco Di Lieto as The Equerry in Page’s Cinderella, sponsored by Bank of Scotland.  Photograph by Bill Cooper.

Below: Martina Forioso as Autumn in Page’s Cinderella, sponsored by Bank of Scotland.  Photograph by Bill Cooper.


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