Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sugar Plums are off the menu at Covent Garden. After nearly two decades of seasonal Nutcrackers, the Royal Ballet is giving Clara and the Stahlbaum family a well-earned rest and replacing them with Cinderella which began a 24-performance run at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday.Yes, it’s a fairy tale but it isn’t an ideal children’s show. Three acts can be a fidget, there are no toy soldiers or dancing mice and Prokofiev’s magnificent score, grandly served by conductor Jonathan Lo and the orchestra, has none of the hummable, spun-sugar delicacy of Tchaikovsky. The cross-dressed Ugly Sisters undoubtedly lighten the mix but never to the point of panto. This is a ballet for grown-ups: bittersweet and packed with pretexts for virtuoso dancing.The 2023 production features sets and costumes by Tom Pye and Alexandra Byrne. Pye’s scenery and Finn Ross’s video projections lend an air of unreality to the transformations and the ballroom scene, intensifying the dream-come-true fantasy of Charles Perrault’s story. The palace facade has the fragile artificiality of toy theatre scenery and the Ziegfieldian stairway of the finale is like something from a colourised Hollywood dream sequence.Cinderella was Frederick Ashton’s first full-evening ballet and he created it in a matter of weeks in 1948, packing it with solos that would showcase the skills (and idiosyncrasies) of his dancers. Tuesday’s Fairy Godmother was the serene and musical Mayara Magri. Fairy Winter was efficiently danced by Claire Calvert. The role, created for Beryl Grey, tempers frosty pointes with the creamy thaw of the arms and upper body. Mariko M Sasaki with her swooning pirouettes and languorous phrasing was a perfect Fairy Summer.The Ugly Sisters’ slapstick still gets the laughs but their tricksy footwork can be swamped by too much mugging and stage business (shorter frocks might help). Gary Avis, dancing on Tuesday, enjoyed himself enormously but sometimes lost sight of the character beneath. Wednesday’s sisters were more subtly and affectionately drawn. Bennet Gartside was a world-weary frump and nimble James Hay, with his Betty Boop eyes, was a scene-stealing “shy” sister.Next Tuesday’s cinema relay will feature Fumi Kaneko (Cinderella) and William Bracewell (The Prince). On Wednesday night, Kaneko was a sweet and musical Cinders. Bracewell partnered with care but his understated verismo, so refreshing in a Romeo, feels out of place in fairyland.Tuesday’s opening was led by Marianela Nuñez who gives us two Cinderellas: the sweet-natured drudge of the fireside scenes and the mystery “princess” of the ballroom who tiptoes down the palace steps like a sleepwalker afraid to break the spell. The Argentine star, 43 next spring, makes light work of that famously scary entrance and of every other challenge set by Ashton’s filigree choreography. Once she has met her Prince (the noble and attentive Reece Clarke replacing an injured Vadim Muntagirov) she expresses her newfound bliss in a tornado of chaînés, her box-fresh satin toes mapping the stage like an enchanted toy. In the ballroom duet she orbits twice around her partner in the tightest possible circuit, sealing him off from the world, willing time to stand still.★★★★☆To January 16, rbo.org.uk
