Cinders in Sunderland

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Birmingham Royal Ballet Cinderella Sunderland Empire 15 Mar 2025 14:00 

Between 6 Feb and 12 Apr 2025, the Birmingham Royal Ballet took Sir David Bintley's Cinderella on a nationwide tour.  I caught it at the Sunderland Empire on 15 March 2025.  I had already reviewed it in Bintley's Best on 2 Mar 2017.  I wrote in that article that I liked everything that I had seen of Bintley's work, but I thought Cinderella was the best.  That is still my view now. 

The reason I admire the ballet so much is that it tells the Grimm brothers' story (with a few variations) through Bintley's spectacular choreography to Prokofiev's beautiful music with John Macfarlane's sumptuous designs and David Finn's ingenious lighting. The Cinderella Relaxed Performance YouTube video is a good introduction to and overview of the ballet.   In Cinderella: An Interview with Sir David Bintley. Sir David confirms Mark Monahan's programme notes that Sir David agreed to create the ballet if Macfarlane agreed to do the designs. Monahan reports: "Lo and behold, John said yes."  Readers will recall that Macfarlane designed Liam Scarlett's Swan Lake, a recording of which I mentioned in Swan Lake at the Leeds Showcase on 30 May 2025.  The importance of those designs is explained in Cinderella: John Macfarlane's Designs.

In his programme notes, Mark Monahan observed that many choreographers had created versions of Cinderella, but it was Sir Frederick Ashton's for the Royal Ballet that "cast the longest shadow". It was important to Bintley that his company's Cinderella should be distinctive.  One important difference is that Bintley's stepsisters are danced by two young women, whereas Sir Frederick and Sir Robert Helpmann danced the stepsisters in the tradition of the English pantomime dame. As the stepsisters' video shows, those young women were quite beastly to Cinderella and, sometimes, even to each other. Ashton and Helpmann were absurd but far from menacing.  Bintley retained the fairy godmother, tradesmen and seasonal fairies (or at least the seasons) in his ballet, introducing also a frog coachman and lizard attendants.

Beatrice Parma danced the title role with flair and grace.  One of the most satisfying moments in the show is when she momentarily turned on her tormentors with a broom.  Others were, of course, her arrival at the ball, her duet with the prince, her producing the missing slipper and her final dance with the prince. Enrique Bejarano Vidal was an impressive prince with his sweeping lifts and powerful jumps.  Isabella Howard was a dazzling fairy godmother.  Having seen Oscar Kempsey-Fagg at An Evening with Ashton on 24 Jan 2023 in Elmhurst Ballet School, which I discussed in An "Evening with Ashton" and the Launch of an English Junior Company on 30 Jan 2023, it is good to see his progress in the company.

Sunderland has a beautiful Edwardian theatre capable of accommodating an audience of 2,200.  It was opened by Vesta Tilly in 1907.  It has a massive stage and excellent acoustics.  It is said to be haunted by the ghosts of Sid James and Vesta Tilly.  Neither spectre appeared on my visit.   Sunderland has a population of just over 277,000.  It used to be known for shipbuilding.  Nowadays, it is better known for making Nissan cars.   It has a university, a football club and beaches.

An "Evening with Ashton" and the Launch of an English Junior Company

Lesley Collier

Photographer MaraJK Licence CC BY-SA 4,0  Source Wikimedia Commons

Birmingham Royal Ballet  An Evening with Ashton 24 Jan 2023  Elmhurst Ballet School

Lesley Collier was one of my favourite dancers when I first took an interest in ballet.  I had not seen her for many years so I jumped at the chance to watch her coach two dancers from Birmingham Royal Ballet at Elmhurst Ballet School on 24 Jan 2023.  Shortly before the masterclass was due to start, Carlos Acosta appeared,  It was clear that this event would be out of the ordinary.  The director introduced the dancers as founder members of BRB2.

It was only in the interval that I appreciated the significance of that introduction.  I overheard Caroline Miller (who was sitting immediately behind me) discuss the new company.  Her description sounded very like Ernst Meisner's Junior Company which I have followed since 2013 (see The Junior Company of the Dutch National Ballet - Stadsshouwburg Amsterdam 24 Nov 2013 25 Feb 2013 Terpsichore). I turned around and asked her whether my surmise was right.  She confirmed that it was.  I was delighted because I had been calling for British companies to follow the Dutch lead for many years, The Junior Company has launched many dazzling careers and strengthened still further an already great company.

The dancers whom Lesley Collier coached were Frieda Kaden and Oscar Kempsey-Fagg,  The piece that she rehearsed was the pas de deux from Ashton's Rhapsody.  Ashton had created that work to celebrate the Queen Mother's 80th birthday and he had chosen Collier to dance it with Mikhail Baryshnikov.  The music is  Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini which the conductor, Barry Wordsworth described as virtuoso in the pit as well as on stage in the Royal Opera House's YouTube clip An Introduction to Rhapsody (the Royal Ballet).   The video shows Collier coaching Steven McRea and Natalia Osipova on the same piece as she coached Kaden and Kempsey-Fagg in Birmingham. 

Kaden and Kempsey-Fagg are at the very start of their careers but they seemed to do the pas de deux just as well as McRea and Osipova.  For the audience the exercise was fascinating.  Ashton had labelled different parts of the piece with distinctive names such as "the pussy cats".  Collier spotted the most minute details such as Kempsey-Fagg lifting Kaden a little bit too high. She reran each sequence requiring a correction until it was perfect.  My only regret as an audience member is that there was not enough time for the dancers to take the whole piece from the top.

The two young dancers rehearsed the piece not only in front of their artistic director but also their artistic coordinator, Kit Holder and three of their colleagues.  The appointment of Holder is an excellent choice.  I recognized his exceptional talent as a choreographer as long ago as 2015.  I wrote in It Takes Three to Tango:

"Kit Holder has choreographed Quatrain for Birmingham Royal Ballet to Piazzolla's The Four Season's of Buenos Aires. Holder is an impressive talent. I first noticed him in Ballet Black's To Fetch a Pail of Water (see Ballet Black's Best Performance Yet 17 Feb 2015) and I was bowled over by Hopper which he created for Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015)."

Holder has created plenty of work since then.   

Like the Junior Company, BRB2 will tour to gain stage experience.  They will start in Northampton on 25 April, continue to Nottingham on 28 and 29, Peterborough on 3 and 4 May, Covent Garden on 13 and 14 June and Wolverhampton on 24 June.  The best night to see them is probably their premiere in Northampton on 25 April 2023 when they will perform with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.  Unfortunately, I shall have to miss that show as I have to chair a lunchtime seminar in Gaerwen on Anglesey the very next day but I will catch them in Nottingham (which is the closest venue to my home) and possibly other stages of their tour.

After the masterclass, we were introduced to the former Sadler's Wells Ballet dancer Lynne Wake who had made Frederick Ashton: Links in the Chain for The Frederick Ashton Foundation.  The film contains contributions from Sir Anthony Dowell, Dame Antoinette Sibley and Lynn Seymour who were at the height of their careers when I started to follow ballet.  There are also interviews with Dame Beryl Grey, Dame Gillian Lynne and Henry Danton who sadly died recently. Happily, there are also contributions from dancers who are still with us such as Marianela Núñez and Vadim Muntagirov.

The title "Links in the Chain" reminds me of Clement Crisp's interview of Dame Antoinette which I discussed in Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School on 3 Feb 2014:

"Sibley spoke about her teachers I realized that every teacher represents to his or students every dancer, choreographer and teacher who has gone before. Sibley loved her teachers and I can relate to that because I love every one of mine. Those who have gently corrected my wobbling arabesques and feeble turns. I texted one of them yesterday after the talk from a restaurant where I ordered - guess what - a steak.

'Oh super jealousy/ she replied.
'Don't be jealous' I responded 'You are also part of the tradition. You live it, I just see it. And you pass on your gift to others.'
'Awwwww Thanku xxxx'
'When I go to class you or Annemarie represent every dancer, choreographer and teacher who ever lived'.
'Aw Jane! I won't be able to leave the room soon'
'I am only paraphrasing Sibley. She should know. Through you I am linked to your teacher who is probably linked to someone at Ballet Russes who is linked to Petipa..
'xxxxx wise woman!.'

As indeed Dame Antoinette is. I learned so much from her yesterday for which I shall always be grateful."

Wake's film celebrated such links. Collier's coaching illustrated another. The exceptionally gifted young men and women who have been accepted into BRB2 and the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company will plug into those links through Kit Holder and Ernst Meisner.

The Birmingham Nutcracker

Nutcracker 22 Homepage sizzle from Birmingham Royal Ballet on Vimeo.

Birmingham Royal Ballet The Nutcracker Royal Albert Hall, 31 Dec 2022 16:00

When I was young the London Festival Ballet converted the Royal Festival Hall into a theatre and staged The Nutcracker during the Christmas holidays.  Because of the venue, those performances were less formal than those at Covent Garden, or Sadler's Wells.  Probably they were also significantly less expensive because there were always lots of families at those shows. I was introduced to ballet at one of those performances as were many other young people.  The Birmingham Royal Ballet continues that tradition by turning the Royal Albert Hall (London's other great concert hall) into a theatre and staging The Nutcracker there between Christmas and New Year's Eve. 

Although the story, choreography, casts and costumes appear to be the same, a performance of The Nutcracker in the Royal Albert Hall is an altogether different experience from a performance of the same ballet at the Hippodrome. For a start, there is a narrator.  The story is told by Simon Callow who is described as the "voice of Drosselmeyer".  The performing space is large.  The orchestra occupies a balcony above the stage.   Scene changes such as the expanding Christmas tree are achieved by lighting and projection  

The ballet is essentially about a young girl's dream.  Clara (as she is called in this country) is given a nutcracker in the shape of a prince by Drosselmeyer, one of the guests at her parents' Christmas party.  In her dream, the nutcracker comes to life and leads a detachment of toy soldiers against a pack of rodents.  The rodents are about to gain the upper hand but Clara saves the day by thumping their king.  As a reward, she is transported to a magical land where she is entertained by Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dancers representing chocolate, coffee and tea, cossacks, mirlitons, flowers and finally the Sugar Plum fairy and her cavalier.   That is significantly different from the Russian version where the girl (known as Marie) becomes the Sugar Plum (see the "About the Performance" page on the Bolshoi's website).

One of the strengths of the Russian version is that audiences see the lead ballerina from the start.  In the Birmingham and most other Western versions, she enters at the very end.  Her pas de deux with her cavalier is little more than a divertissement,  That always strikes me as a shame when Sugar Plum is danced by a principal.  That is so different from Odette, Giselle, Aurora or any of the other great classical roles where audiences get to know the lead ballerina

I attended the 16:00 performance on New Year's eve which had a stellar cast.  Céline Gittens was the Sugar Plum. Brandon Lawrence was her cavalier. Reina Fuchigami was Clara.   Jonathan Payn was Drosselmeyer.  Gittens is my favourite ballerina with that company,  As I said in my review of her performance as Juliet, she has a quality that reminds me of her compatriot Lynn Seymour. Lawrence supported her gallantly as her cavalier.

Perhaps because it was the last performance of the year and they were looking forward to New Year's eve parties the artists seemed to dance with added energy and flair.   I particularly liked the Spanish dance performed by Rosanna Ely, Louis Andreasen and Oscar Kempsey-Fagg. I also enjoyed the Snowflakes scene in the first act and the Waltz of the Flowers in the second.  That is because I had performed those dancers, albeit after a fashion.  Martin Dutton of the Hammond taught me the first snowflake's role at a KNT workshop in Manchester.  I have also attended several of Jane Tucker's workshops on Waltz of the Flowers for KNT and Powerhouse Ballet.  I learned more about The Nutcracker from those workshops than I had previously gained in a lifetime of watching it from the stalls.

There were some fun gimmicks on the set.  Clara's brother was given a rat on wheels for Christmas.  After that same brother had trashed the nutcracker Drosselmeyer was able to fix it remotely.  I should have mentioned earlier that Drosselmeyer's store with his name in gothic writing appeared at the beginning.

A good ballet needs a good orchestra and this company has one of the best.  Peter Murphy conducted them on New Year's eve to loud applause from both cast and audience.  

Every major company in the UK has its version of The Nutcracker.  I have seen them all at one time and another.   We all have our favourites.  This version is mine.