ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
THE MUCH-LOVED Cinderella is a story that’s been retold from cradle to grave, with its origins going back beyond the Brothers Grimm as far as ancient Greece.
A favourite panto perennial in Britain, it’s an international folklore classic that’s been adapted for film, television, opera, musical and ballet and undergone countless varied interpretations since its first staging in 1804.
Yet it was Sergei Prokofiev’s score, premiered in 1945 at the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow, that became the mainstay of future ballet productions and gave choreographers free creative rein with the storyline.
DAVID NICHOLSON recommends the staging of this Wagnerian classic minus one or two insignificant quibbles
Danni Perry’s flag display at the Royal Opera House sparked 182 performers to sign a solidarity letter that cancelled the Tel Aviv Tosca production, while Leonardo DiCaprio invests in Tel Aviv hotels, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
WILL STONE applauds a fine production that endures because its ever-relevant portrait of persecution
PETER MASON is wowed (and a little baffled) by the undeniably ballet-like grace of flamenco



