STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
Latest editorial
Cinderella, Royal Albert Hall, London
English National Ballet have a ball with a classic fairy tale
Only ugly inside: Emma Hawes and Katja Khaniukova in Cinderella
[Laurent Liotardo]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
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.
Similar stories
PETER MASON is wowed (and a little baffled) by the undeniably ballet-like grace of flamenco
SUSAN DARLINGTON applauds the translation of Jane Eyre into a ballet that preserves the drama of her formative years
PETER MASON points out that it takes more than a string of poppy power ballads to make a satisfactory drama
SUSAN DARLINGTON is unmoved by a production full of spectacular tableax but without emotional connection to the characters