Ako Kondo & Chengwu Guo in Cinderella, Photo Jeff Busby, supplied by Australian Ballet
From the stage set when the curtain rises, one might mistake this Cinderella for a traditional production, except for one jarring detail. In the corner, stands no ordinary sofa but a pair of luscious Mae West lips, drawn directly from Dali.
It is the first clue that Alexei Ratmansky’s production of Cinderella is no simple fairy tale. Dali gets more of an outing as the production gathers speed with witty and inventive touches. Particularly apposite is the appearance of his classic Schiaparelli shoe hats appear appropriately on the heads of the stepmother and stepsisters as they try on the glass slipper. Informed audiences will also spot a riff on a de Chirico paintings and references to Magritte.
After the first scene – which is played fairly traditionally with some amusing clowning from Jasmin Durham as the stepmother and Lisa Craig and Heidi Martin as the stepsisters – the production becomes darker and more interesting.
The fairy godmother is no figure of twinkling benevolence but a long-nosed and dark-coated witch. The portrayal of time as a force looming over Cinderella is particularly inventive and takes the production to a more sophisticated level. In place of white mice and pumpkins there is a glorious transportation via celestial bodies, creatively choreographed by Ratmanksy and gorgeously costumed by Jerome Kaplan.
The production is not always coherent as it veers between tradition and invention. Once we are transported to the ball, we are given a beautifully coloured vision in purples and greens with a slight modern touch but we are back in the romantic world of the fairy tale and the pantomime of the stepsisters.
The pleasure here is more orthodox, in the romantic pas de deux of the lead couple. The night ArtsHub attended, Ako Kondo made a perfect Cinderella, her delicacy and grace has stillness and composure which manages to balance the whole corps de ballet. She is well matched by Chengwu Guo, who is a courtly romantic hero.
The surrealism comes to the fore again as we reach midnight and time again emerges as a force that lurches at the audience as it does at our heroine.
The production lags during the Third Act as the Prince searches for Cinderella and the design turns a little cartoonish. But there is another find inventive seen to distract us and we are soon relieve as the Prince finds his Princes and deliver another delightful pas de deux to round off the ballet.
Three and a half stars out of five
Cinderella
Arts Centre Melbourne
Until 27 June, 2015
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