{"id":31867,"date":"2019-01-22T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T09:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/?p=31867"},"modified":"2019-01-22T09:30:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T09:30:57","slug":"when-cinderella-dreams-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/when-cinderella-dreams-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"When Cinderella dreams Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alessandro\nBizzotto<\/strong> reviews two performances of the Paris Opera Ballet\nproduction of a classic whose staging looks somehow dated <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been loving Frederick Ashton\u2019s \u201cCinderella\u201d since the first time I saw it at the Royal Opera House in London \u2013 there\u2019s something unique in what the British choreographer did while sewing the choreography on Prokofiev\u2019s fascinating score to present the audience the perfect mix of tutus and storytelling. It has always been weird, then, to see Cinderella\nliving in an old-fashioned American diner and dreaming about Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Rudolf Nureyev created his own \u201cCinderella\u201d it\ncould have sense to do so \u2013 the lead was danced by a true superstar, Sylvie\nGuillem, someone ready to leave the Paris Opera to move to the Royal Ballet and\nto become one of the most famous ballerinas of the century. Nureyev, who had\nnurtured her, reserved for himself the role of the producer who finds out\nCinderella has talent and casts her for his new movie. Today, in our eyes, it all\nmakes perfect sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Silvia Saint-Martin in ‘Cinderella’ \u00a9 Yonathan Kellerman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is something I don\u2019t like to think nor to say, but I have always had the feeling that, without its original cast, this ballet lost sense in some way. To elaborate, Nureyev\u2019s \u201cCinderella\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily need Guillem, but it looks as if the whole ballet can work just with soloists of the highest calibre. As a matter of fact, the choreography itself is sketchy, nearly perfunctory, and more than once it seems to make it tough for the dancers to show their best. In addition, in a post-Harvey Weinstein era, our\nsensibility can easily find this twist on the original story even more awkward\n\u2013 can a woman be successful just if a man (a powerful producer) grants her a\ncontract for a Hollywood production and if she makes a film star fall in love?\nThe producer itself, after all, is quite stereotypical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Silvia Saint-Martin and Fran\u00e7ois Alu in ‘Cinderella’ \u00a9 Yonathan Kellerman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I agree with those who think Nureyev himself wanted to reaffirm his own talent as a star-maker while staging this \u201cCinderella\u201d. Besides Guillem, Kenneth Greve comes to my mind as an example, the Danish former dancer and then director of the Finnish National Ballet till he was fired due to (among other reasons) improper language towards the dancers \u2013 maybe he did not become a superstar as Guillem did, but he caused serious uproar among the Principals of the Paris Opera Ballet when Nureyev chose him as his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 inviting him to dance the role of prince Siegfried in \u201cSwan Lake\u201d. Love for fame and success is still seeping out of\nthis production, which is often funny but, in spite of the efforts of the\ncompany, one way or another dated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Sujet (or Soloist) Silvia Saint-Martin makes\nher utmost in the title role, mastering the choreography and showing off an\nunripe yet promising lyricism. She would only have needed some more charm and\nbetter acting qualities to make the story alive and wholly understandable. Just\nas an example, in Act 3, despite being seated in the first row I didn\u2019t realize\nthat Cinderella was dreaming of the film set and then getting back to reality\nuntil I saw in the role Principal Ludmila Pagliero the following night \u2013 she is\nwhat you call an actress, besides being an exquisite ballerina. Pagliero, who\nis extremely gifted and relatively well known in the microcosm of ballet, is\nnearly sublime in the role and I guess she is one of the few today that can\ngive this dusty \u201cCinderella\u201d a sparkle of magic. It is a pity to see her so poorly partnered by\nPrincipal Germain Louvet \u2013 he may be a gifted and reliable partner, but his\nacting skills and his charisma are rather weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is First soloist Fran\u00e7ois Alu, Saint-Martin\u2019s\nmodern prince, that proves to have the potential to be an \u201cacteur-vedette\u201d. He\ndoes not dance as well as Louvet does \u2013 Alu might have a stronger technique, yet\nLouvet is more polished and he never over-dances as Alu sometimes does. However,\nFran\u00e7ois Alu has an impressive sense of theatre and is a spontaneous actor \u2013 in\nAct 3 it was almost hilarious to watch his flirtatious game with the girl in\nthe Spanish cantina. It is just a little example, but Alu\u2019s whole performance\nis convincing and genuine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On stage as the two stepsisters with Saint-Martin and Alu, Aur\u00e9lia Bellet and Charline Giezendanner are a pleasure to watch \u2013 they are simply explosive. Their acting game is flawless, Bellet is absurdly mean and Giezendanner, always so cute even as a step-sister, is never less than brilliant, dazzling the audience with quadruple pirouettes. The following night, opposite Pagliero and Louvet, Fanny Gorse and Marion Barbeau are more caricatural, yet fun all the same. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alessandro Bizzotto reviews two performances of the Paris Opera Ballet production of a classic whose staging looks somehow dated I have been loving Frederick Ashton\u2019s \u201cCinderella\u201d since the first time I saw it at the Royal Opera House in London \u2013 there\u2019s something unique in what the British choreographer did while sewing the choreography on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31871,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31867\/revisions\/31871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danceforyou-magazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}