Opera Tickets Italy

A production of Sergei Prokofiev's ever-popular ballet, Cinderella, is staged at Venice's illustrious Opera House, the Gran Teatro La Fenice, with superb choreography by Jean-Christophe Maillot. Featuring the Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the top-notch La Fenice Orchestra, this version of Cinderella was first performed on 3 April 1999 at the Salle Garnier Opéra de Monte-Carlo. The debut of the ballet took place much earlier, however. Prokofiev had been commissioned to produce a new ballet following the somewhat unexpected success of his version of Romeo and Juliet. The great Russian composer chose Cinderella as his next balletic score but its production was delayed by the then Soviet Union's involvement in the Second World War. Consequently, the Cinderella premiere did not occur until 21 November 1945 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, several months after the war had ended.

Prokofiev based his telling of the famous fairytale on Charles Perrault's version, Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper, first featured in 'Histoires ou contes du temps passé', published in 1697. This sets it apart from other stage productions that have sometimes tended to use the Grimm brothers' version of the story which was published in 1812 in their famous collection of folk tales. The composer said that he wanted his orchestration to reveal Cinderella not merely as a fairy-tale character but also as a real person with whom audiences could relate. Prokofiev's music focuses on the romantic ideal that Cinderella's affection for the Prince conveys. The composer himself described this as a 'poetic love'. For him, the music needed to describe not only the flowering of that love, but also the obstacles in its path before the dream can finally be fulfilled.

Maillot, who studied dance and piano at the Conservatoire National de Région de Tours, choreographed Prokofiev's Cinderella for the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, a dance company for which he has created almost 40 ballets since his tenure began there in the 1990s. His interpretation of Prokofiev's music centres on Cinderella as a relatable human being. From the very first scene, she is depicted in grief, still holding onto her deceased mother's dress, generating a sense of sympathy and loss among audience-goers. She is encouraged never to dwell on the past by her stepmother and stepsisters, though, characters who are also well-conceived as real people. They are far from the pantomime villains of so many productions and all three operate as a savvy group who know how to get what they want most from the world.

This production of Cinderella at the beautiful Opera House in Venice offers the chance to witness a remarkable ballet with superb music, dance and sheer theatricality in a familiar, yet modern, tale.