"Cinderella" was Alexei Ratmansky's debut in the form of a multi-act plot performance, before that in his staging baggage there were only one-acts and miniatures. And Ratmansky, unlike many predecessors who staged this ballet, offered an interpretation of Prokofiev's large-scale score, and not the plot of a well-known fairy tale. Leaving behind caramel-sweet children's tales "about the right to happiness of everyone who has a good heart", he placed his heroine in a timeless, but with the signs of the present day environment, where miracles are performed not by beautiful fairies, but by a businesslike old beggar woman with a net of oranges and retinue of cocky punks. Ratmansky, in alliance with Valery Gergiev, Ilya Utkin, Evgeny Monakhov and Elena Markovskaya, put the depth of Prokofiev's masterpiece, its notes of anxiety and love of life into an ironic ballet with postmodern ease. He appeared as a choreographer, at the performance of which the audience laughs, and the artists, surrendering to the elements of the game, discover new acting facets in themselves and fool around from the bottom of their hearts. So, Cinderella's sisters fooled around, depicting a boxing fight and a duel of sumo wrestlers. And in the ball scene, the choreographer-composer was fooling around: alien to any pathos, he destroyed the pathos of fabulousness. Echoing the irony that permeates Prokofiev's musical theme, he created a parody of the traditional fairy tale idea of court society: either secular lions and lionesses shifted clumsily from foot to foot, then the ladies coyly shook their tassels, and the gentlemen, strongly tilting their bodies, galloped across the stage in a deep plie in pas mazurkas. And in the ball scene, the choreographer-composer was fooling around: alien to any pathos, he destroyed the pathos of fabulousness. Echoing the irony that permeates Prokofiev's musical theme, he created a parody of the traditional fairy tale idea of court society: either secular lions and lionesses shifted clumsily from foot to foot, then the ladies coyly shook their tassels, and the gentlemen, strongly tilting their bodies, galloped across the stage in a deep plie in pas mazurkas. And in the ball scene, the choreographer-composer was fooling around: alien to any pathos, he destroyed the pathos of fabulousness. Echoing the irony that permeates Prokofiev's musical theme, he created a parody of the traditional fairy tale idea of court society: either secular lions and lionesses shifted clumsily from foot to foot, then the ladies coyly shook their tassels, and the gentlemen, strongly tilting their bodies, galloped across the stage in a deep plie in pas mazurkas.
