| | Winnipeg Free Press
Friday, November 3, 2006
Fit for a Prince
RWB's swingin' take on classic fairy tale is lavish, luscious and loads of fun
By Holly Harris
BIBBIDI-bobbidi-boo! Even if you don't have a fairy godmother to call your own, you should make a wish to see Royal Winnipeg Ballet's snazzy, spectacular A Cinderella Story, a '50s-flavoured fairy tale that lights up the stage like a bright neon billboard.
The RWB season-opener features the delightful jazz- and social dance-injected choreography of San Francisco's Val Caniparoli, who created the full-length story ballet for the company in October 2004.
Wednesday night's performance kicked off a five-show local run, and the show tours to Ottawa's National Arts Centre in January.
The stylish remount includes a luscious live score of Richard Rodgers' Broadway songs arranged by consummate local pianist/bandleader Ron Paley. Paley's Big Band musicians are back in the pit, swinging their hearts out and adding immeasurably to the show's popularity and success.
Many adaptations of the classic folk tale have gone before, and this version will likely not be the last. Sheryl Flatow's libretto, set in 1957, takes us into a tidy domestic world of TV dinners, cheery ad jingles and idealized families where all things -- even a new-model Chevy in place of a pumpkin-carriage -- seem possible.
For this Cinderella -- quiet, bespectacled Nancy (CindyMarie Small) -- life fixates on the steady, comforting drone of television. Her faithful Dog (frisky audience favourite Darren Anderson) is her sole companion, a bounding canine who hula hoops and performs tricks for her amusement.
Life suddenly changes when her beloved father (Johnny Chang) brings home a new wife (Tara Birtwhistle), only to die tragically and leave Nancy to grapple with her two spiteful stepsisters (Emily Grizzell and Janet Sartore-De Luca) and her stepmother's ruthless ambitions.
In a sensationally danced scene at a ballroom dance studio, enter Bob (Peter Brandenhoff), a hunky hoofer who captures Nancy's eye with his fancy footwork and swaggering self-assurance. All roads lead to the winter dance, and the rest is fairy-tale history, with such witty touches as a ballroom-escape elevator instead of a staircase.
Small's radiant portrayal of Nancy as a spunky, doe-eyed innocent has only grown since she last played this role two years ago. Her exquisite grace embodies the character right down to her tiptoes, from the limpid tenderness of the Act 2 park scenemmMy Heart Stood Still to the sizzling tango pas de deux No Other Love where she pirouettes her way into Bob's heart.
Birtwhistle's cunning stepmother puts the E in evil. She's an icy domestic queen whose every withering glance, every witchy trick (including an attempt to poison Dog) adds up to deliciously wicked effect.
Guest principal artist Brandenhoff creates a particularly robust Bob, a manly man who -- in a unique twist -- loses his slipper as well as his heart to Nancy. The character needs to swivel his hips with the best of them, and some stiffness prevented him from showing off Caniparoli's street-sexy choreography as well as he might.
The dreamlike garden scene in which Cinderella is transformed for the dance -- whipped up by principal dancer Vanessa Lawson's fabulously funky fairy godmother -- could last forever. It almost does, but no matter. The kaleidoscopic array of fantastical creatures -- skunk, raccoon, bee, peacock, penguin and more -- is pure fun.
Just like the parade of >divertissements in traditional ballets such as The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, this is where members of the company get to show off their prowess in a timeout from the storyline. Beaver's explosive heights and Penguin's quirky solo accompanied by Paley's guttural vocal gymnastics were highlights.
No fairy tale would be complete without strong visuals and Sandra Woodall's stunning, Givenchy-soaked costumes and starburst-styled set create an elegant world à la Audrey Hepburn. A Cinderella Story may be a new take on an old tale, but this sassy blast to the past will shimmy its way into audience hearts with attitude and style to burn.
The show runs until Sunday afternoon, with alternating leads.
DANCE REVIEW
A Cinderella Story
Royal Winnipeg Ballet
Centennial Concert Hall to Nov. 5
Attendance: Nov. 1: 1, 250
four stars out of five Victoria Review
February 27, 2005
Splashy New Cinderella Tale A Winner In Music and Dance
By Grania Litwin
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has a winner in its splashy new piece, A Cinderella Story, danced here Friday and Saturday.
Luscious taffeta dresses, white ties and tails, wonderful choreography, superb sets, brilliant dancing technique and a stellar big band conjure up the elegance and excitement of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The big band, conducted by Ron Paley on piano, played the kind of music you can’t sit still to – Richard Rodgers tunes such as Isn’t It Romantic and The Sweetest Sounds, newly arranged to a jazzy, bluesy beat. His own rhythm section from Winnipeg was joined by local musicians on piano, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, guitar and percussion. Musical sparks were flying from the orchestra pit, especially during some of the drum solos.
This is entertainment at its best. There was even a disco ball and babydoll pyjamas.
The choreography included modern dance, ballroom, be-bop, jazz and even ice skating, but none of it could have been executed so effectively without this company’s depth of classical training. They all looked as if they were dancing for fun too, with their buoyant, graceful, loose-hipped twists, jumps, slides and beautiful phrasing.
The new storyline by San Francisco choreographer Val Caniparoli and librettist by Sheryl Flatow told an updated version of the classic fairytale, in which family gathers round the TV instead of the fireplace. In one imaginative scene, before Cinderella (now Nancy) goes to the ball, a glittering pumpkin explodes and the TV cabinet turns into an bright orange convertible. This heroine drives herself in the ball.
Standouts in the show included a radiant CindyMarie Small as Nancy in a hugely demanding part. She never seemed to leave the stage, and the emotional range took her from tender scenes with her father and romantic ones with her “prince” Bob, to combative capers with her poisonous stepsisters.
Bob, danced by Guiseppe de Ruggiero, moved like a loose-hipped Italian stallion. Swaggering, strong and virile, he leapt into the air with virtuosic talent, and supported Nancy in many beautiful and unusual lifts.
After parting for midnight, they danced a haunting pas de deux in front of a midnight blue curtain, moving together while never touching, but when they met again it was in an up-beat steamy Latin number.
Sarah-Murphy Dyson, the foxy Victoria native was hilarious as one of the spoiled stepsisters. Her tantrums garnered plenty of laughs, as did her petulant ponytail. Stepmother Tara Birtwhistle shone in her role, especially dancing to the strains of The Lady is a Tramp, and Darren Anderson was perfectly cast as Nancy’s faithful companion, her dog. He lounged and leapt with everything from a hula-hoop and a Slinky to a pogo stick.
It’s a contemporary feast for the eyes and ears that will no doubt appeal to classical dance lovers, but also bring a whole new audience into the theatre. It was brought to Victoria by the Victoria Dance Series. RWB has a ball with jazzed-up Cinderella
Friday, October 22, 2004, Winnipeg Free Press
By Garth A. Buchholz
THERE'S a new Cinderella in town, hep cats, and she's swingin' to the sounds of Richard Rodgers jazz juice arranged by Winnipeg's own Ron Paley. OK, enough of that daddy-o lingo. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet's sizzling world premiere of A Cinderella Story, set in 1957, takes its jazz seriously, but has a heck of a lot of fun along the way with the rhythmically rapturous choreography by the highly accomplished Val Caniparoli of the San Francisco Ballet.
A Cinderella Story is a tremendously original achievement to mark the RWB's 65th anniversary celebrations.
The highly energized show is all dressed up in retro scenery and haute couture costumes by Sandra Woodall that evoke a kind of surreal '50s-era television look while being authentic enough to maintain some of the story's na?vet? and romance. There's even a scene set in an Arthur Murray dance studio.
The packed opening night crowd on Wednesday was cheering and clapping at intermission rather than rushing for the bar in the lobby, which said something about the show's pure entertainment value.
Dancer CindyMarie Small (you might want to call her "CinderellaMarie" now) was absolutely fabulous in the lead (alternating with Emily Grizzell) and took ownership of it in every way. It's hard to believe that after 14 seasons with the RWB, Small still hasn't been promoted to principal dancer, considering that she danced this principal part as if she's been premiering new ballets for years.
It's a great honour for Small to be given this opportunity, so she's very much like a Cinderella, who through some ballet magic is finally getting a ticket to the big ball.
The show playfully opens "pre-curtain" while the audience is still coming in, with our Cinderella watching a large console TV that has rabbit-ear antennae, of course. Her faithful Dog, performed as a jester-like character by dancer Darren Anderson, fusses around happily. We hear the TV advertising the "upcoming" Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, an actual 1957 hit TV special starring Julie Andrews.
Suddenly the set backdrop appears, a stylish open-concept house with two floors, and a horde of servants pour in, looking like something out of a New Yorker cartoon from that era. Cinderella's beloved widowed father (played by retired RWB principal dancer Johnny W. Chang, which was a real treat) enters the scene with an unexpected entourage. A wealthy entrepreneur, he now appears with a flashy new wife (Tara Birtwhistle) and two nasty but pretty stepdaughters (Cindy Winsor and Sarah Murphy-Dyson), who automatically despise the dowdy Cinderella, of course.
This sets the story in motion, although this Cinderella is not a doormat. She's a spunky girl who's too nice (at first) to fight back. The "prince," performed in an impressive debut by the commanding new RWB soloist Giuseppe de Ruggiero, is a rich playboy named Bob, a cool-cat hybrid of Gene Kelly and Bobby Darin.
Naturally, the Rodgers music and the scintillating syncopations of the Ron Paley Big Band, which performed live in the orchestra pit, are the biggest stars of this show. Paley has done an awesome job of arranging older, generally lesser-known Rodgers tunes into a musical swirl of smooth and sassy jazz that evokes the playful, romantic and somewhat rascally zeitgeist of the '50s.
Choreographer Caniparoli poured his talents into this production liberally, staging seamless transitions by making new set pieces appear even as the previous scene is still being finished. He also gives the dancers great material -- for example, in Act II there's an enthralling pas de deux between Cinderella and Bob, and at the end of Act I, there's a dazzling, surreal divertissement where a magical godmother appears from the TV set and summons magical creatures in a garden. Like the creatures in The Wizard of Oz, they all look a little familiar to Cinderella.
A Cinderella Story is brilliant in the way it fractures the fairy tale and has a kind of off-Broadway whiz-bang appeal, with more than a whiff of post-modernist irony (this Cinderella fits the shoe on Prince Bob).
All the dancers in principal roles did an outstanding job of giving their characterizations humour and detail -- there's so much to watch here that you could see it three times in a row and get something new out of it each time.
The RWB is taking A Cinderella Story, made possible by a $250,000 gift from The Asper Foundation, on tour through Western Canada during the 2004-2005 season. | |
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