Synopsis:
Once
upon a time, a kind and benevolent King ruled a kingdom far away. His name was
King Christopher Rupert Vladimir Alexander Francois Reginald Herman. He was
beloved by his subjects. He had three sons: Crown Prince Charming and his
younger brothers Desiré and Fortune.
Act I
Scene I: A Parlor in
the Royal Palace
Our
story begins in a parlor where Prince Charming is sitting alone brooding,
oblivious of the chambermaid doing her chores. He is bored by the gilded tinsel
of royal etiquette and the pompous ceremonies of his royal duties. He longs for
a more active and useful existence. His brothers, Fortune and Desiré, come in with their friends. Their tales of a
hunt they have just been on are the usual stuff and Prince Charming feels the
ennui even more.
His
friends try to dispel the gloom by dancing. They coax Prince Charming into
joining in. Pretty soon, the atmosphere becomes cheerful as the princes and
their friends let out their youthful energies in a rousing dance.
A
fanfare announces the approach of the King. The royal retinue comes in led by
the Prime Minister followed by the sprightly King. At a sign from the King, a
baby’s crib is brought in. It is his way of saying that he desperately wants a
grandchild. His sons are not anxious to cooperate.
The
King is not about to give up. He orders the Prime Minister to set up a ball
where the marriageable ladies in the kingdom are to be invited. The King is
hoping that at least one of his sons will choose a bride. The Prime Minister
sets off to carry out the royal command.
Scene II: The Manor
of the Widow Brunhilda
In
the kingdom, there lived the widow Brunhilda, who was made rich by her first
husband (a tax collector) and respectable by her second (a nobleman). She has
two daughters by her first marriage. There is the vain Prunella and the awkward
Griselda. Brunhilda also inherited a stepdaughter from her second husband. Her
name is Cinderella. Since the death of her father, she was reduced to being a
servant girl in the manor of her father. She is dressed in rags and kept
half-starved with scraps from the widow’s table.
The
Widow Brunhilda receives the royal invitation and this throws the entire
household in an uproar. This is the opportunity for one or both daughters to
marry into royalty. No expense must be spared. Her daughters must have the
finest things to wear.
On
the day of the ball, a parade of the finest weavers, dressmakers, shoemakers,
hairdressers, milliners and jewelers were ushered into the family parlors.
Cinderella reads the royal invitation again. She feels that she is invited
because she is a nobleman’s daughter and is marriageable. Her musings are
interrupted by the departure of the entourage of tradesmen.
Excited,
Cinderella brings out her mother’s gown and pretends she’s at the ball. She
dances and runs into the royal court’s Dancing Master, who was hired to teach
Prunella and Griselda a little about the manners and dances of society. He
mistakes Cinderella for one of his pupils and dances with her. He finds her a
very good dancer.
Calls
from her stepmother and stepsisters rend the air. She runs her legs off
carrying out all sorts of orders. Prunella and Griselda, envious of each other,
quarrel over the new things they bought. They tangle. The Dancing Master is
shocked. Brunhilda tells her daughters to take their lessons. The sisters are
dancing disasters, which infuriates the Dancing Master. The apologetic sisters
prevail on him to dance. He gladly shows off his dancing prowess.
The
sisters show Brunhilda what they learned. They are not good but their mother is
happy. After all, were they not taught by the court’s Dancing Master himself?
As everyone goes off to get ready for the ball, the Dancing Master dances with
his only good pupil, Cinderella, and takes leave. Prunella and Griselda
rehearse their curtsies. Before long, they are quarreling once again. Brunhilda
is excited over the prospect of having a prince for a son-in-law. Cinderella
enters all dressed up in her mother’s gown. The other three are shocked at her
impudence. They gang up on Cinderella and tear the gown off her.
Scene III: The Garden
of the Widow Brunhilda
Cinderella
runs off to the garden in tears. She is heartbroken. Soon after, animals and
birds, creatures that Cinderella has befriended and fed, appear feeling sorry
for their friend. They try to cheer her up with their dances.
The
quadrupeds (white mice, deer, bear, squirrels) begin the “divertissement” with
their dance, followed by the Swans, the bluejays, the peacocks, the cardinal
and the owl, the fireflies, and finally, the butterflies.
Cinderella
is momentarily amused, but when she sees the lighted castle in the distance,
she remembers the ball. She cries once again. Suddenly, a beautiful lady with a
wand appears. It is her Fairy Godmother! She tells Cinderella that she is going
to the ball after all. With a wave of her magic wand, she turns Cinderella’s
old dress into a beautiful shimmering ball gown. A pumpkin in the garden turns
into a coach worthy of a queen, with elegant footmen and drawn by two stately
white horses.
However,
the Fairy Godmother warns Cinderella that at the stroke of midnight, her gown,
which was made by fairies, will disappear and she will be dressed in her old
rags once again. The slippers will remain because it was the pair that
Cinderella gave to an old beggar woman once. With this, Cinderella gets on the
coach and departs for the palace as her little friends wave at her.
Act II
The Grand Ballroom at
the Palace
In
the magnificent ballroom, the guests await the arrival of the King. He comes in
with Duchess Elena, his niece, and her escort, Duke Theo. The Prime Minister
welcomes the ladies and introduces them to the King. The guests dance a Minuet.
Prince Charming, his brothers, and their friends dance as the ladies thrill at
the sight of the handsome young men.
The
Widow Brunhilda enters followed by her daughters. As they pay respect to the
King, Prunella sees her target for the evening: Prince Charming. She tugs at
his sleeve to dance with him, but the elusive prince shoves Desiré in his place
much to his younger brother’s annoyance. Prunella flirts outrageously with
Desiré. Prince Charming requests a solo from Prunella. Her dance is followed by
Desiré’s own solo.
Griselda,
not to be outdone by her sister, dances and she spots Prince Fortune. She grabs
the unwilling prince and their dance becomes a comic duet. Brunhilda wants to
dance with Prince Charming but the King takes her for a Farandole. They are
joined by her daughters with their miserable princes.
The Prime Minister
invites everyone to take part in a grand waltz.
Cinderella
makes her entrance and Prince Charming finally finds someone who interests him.
In fact, he falls in love with her immediately. He dances with her. They fall
in love. Brunhilda looks at Cinderella suspiciously. There is something
familiar about her. It would take a miracle for her stepdaughter to attend the
ball.
The
palace clock strikes the hour of midnight. Cinderella remembers her Fairy
Godmother’s warning. She runs away from a puzzled Prince Charming. He tries to
follow her but she is gone. All that is left is a slipper which came off
Cinderella’s foot. The prince overwhelmingly grieves at the loss of his love.
He does not even notice the girl in a tattered dress that runs past him. He
must find Cinderella.
Act III
Scene I: The King’s
Chamber
The
King is overjoyed that Prince Charming has finally lost his heart to the
beautiful girl at the ball. He tells his Prime Minister that the royal crib
will be put to good use soon.
Prince
Charming, still clutching Cinderella’s slipper, enters in a depressed state. He
will marry no other girl except the girl to whom the slipper belongs. The girl
must be found! The King orders the Prime Minister to mobilize all resources to
find the girl.
Once
again, the Prime Minister goes off on a mission for the King. He tries the
slipper on all the ladies of the kingdom but it will not fit any of them.
Scene II: The Manor
of the Widow Brunhilda
The
arrival of the Prime Minister in their manor throws Brunhilda and her daughters
into a tizzy. They are determined that the search for Prince Charming’s bride
will end at their household.
The
sisters take turns fitting the slipper on but it is not big enough for either
one of them. They fight over who will try the slipper again and in the
struggle, the slipper drops and shatters to pieces.
The
Prime Minister is distressed. The loss of the slipper will cost his head.
Cinderella, who has been watching the mad “goings-on”, tells the Prime Minister
that she has the other slipper, which she shows him. The mystery girl is found!
The grateful Prime Minister rejoices at his success.
Scene III: The Grand
Ballroom at the Palace
The
wedding celebration has begun with the guests dancing a stately Polonnaise. The
Fairy Godmother is thanked by all and she bestows her blessings on Cinderella
and Prince Charming.
The
happy pair dance a nuptial duet. This is followed by a pas de trois. Prince
Charming and Cinderella each do a solo which leads to a brilliant finish for
the dance by the newlyweds.
The
festivities conclude with a general dance for Prince Charming and Cinderella,
who, as everyone knows, lived happily ever after.
The End
Cinderella Background:
The
classic story of Cinderella has spun itself into a thousand tales. Told over
and over by one enchanted storyteller after another, it leaped from century
through century, region to region until almost every culture had made its own.
From
India to Indonesia, America to Africa, to China, and even Ukrania, dancing
through time, from place to place, the fairy tale has jumped from romantic to
gruesome, strange to utterly ludicrous. The surviving thread of course is the
heart of the story, Cinderella herself. The same kind, young lady tormented by
her cruel step-family after her mother’s death, then rescued by a magical
guardian, a magical occurrence, and saved finally by a love-struck prince.
China
holds the honor of having produced one of the earliest known written versions
of the tale, recorded in the mid-ninth century AD by a certain Tuan
Ch’eng-Shih. Cinderella (called Yeh-shen) is rescued from her evil stepmother
and stepsister by a magical fish, and led to her beloved prince by a golden
shoe. The story was put to pen once again, centuries later, by the French poet
Charles Perrault, in 1697, bringing in the now-familiar fairy godmother,
pumpkin carriage, animal friends, and glass slippers. [Interestingly, Perrault
might have confused the French word “vair” (fur) with “verre” (French for
glass) when he heard the story, hence the unusual choice of the slippers’
material.]
In
Afghanistan and Iran, a strangely violent and gruesome version is narrated
during the central meal in the Ash-e Bibi Murad, a muslim women’s ritual. Their
Cinderella is manipulated into murdering her own mother, by a lady instructor
who after that marries her widowed father. Cinderella’s “fairy godmother” in
the story is a yellow cow.
Germany’s
Grimm brothers tell of Aschenputtel (Ash Girl) and her bird friends who, during
the grand wedding of Cinderella and her Prince, peck out the eyes of the horrid
stepsisters.
As
with all other ancient tales passed on by word of mouth, Cinderella has
drastically, and many times hilariously, transformed, leaving it almost
impossible to accurately trace its origins. But in the search of the story’s
enchanted beginnings, some interesting hypotheses arise: what if perhaps
Cinderella was primitive man’s allegory for the rising of the sun, Cinderella
being the Dawn, and her prince the Morning Sun.
In
other instances the story as been linked to ancient practices, such as the
imperial bride-show custom in ancient Byzantium, Russia and China in which
rulers, emperors, or kings in search of a bride would conduct a selection
process among an assembly of ladies, examining not only the fance and stature,
but the “sandal on the foot.” Another Chinese version of the story, called Hse
Shien, tells of the Prince’s search for a slipper dainty enough to fit only the
tiniest, most exquisite of feet, linking it, this time, to China’s foot-binding
customs, suggesting Cinderella may also have been a folkloric retelling of
actual ancient practices.
As
to when, or how, the enchanted tale was first spun, we can only search and
explore – embarking on yet another fascinating journey with the mystery giving
birth to even more enchanting stories, inspiring many more telling of the tale,
in books, movies, theatre and dance performances, and even paintings,
infiltrating the world of art and becoming a universal symbol, a character of
depth and beauty – Cinderella, our kind young heroine, dancing gracefully,
endlessly, through our universal story.
Source:
Cinderella Souvenir Program (2002)
Ballet Philippines
Great Cinderella ballets through the years
Of
almost a hundred Cinderella stories that have spun across the world through the
ages, it was Charles Perrault’s Cinderella fairy tale that would captivate
readers-all over Europe, then eventually throughout the world – with his Mother
Goose series, transforming Cinderella into a universal heroine. It was also
this fairy tale version that the ballet world would adopt, and with it take to
stage its enchanted world of magic, love, and destiny.
1813
The first known Cinderella ballet
production. Choreographed by Louie Antoine Dupont in Vienna.
1823
Charles-Louis Didelot’s Cinderella
presented in Paris.
1825
Zolyouska (Russia’s “Cinderella”) at
the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Felicite-Hullin-Sor as Cinderella.
1871
WK Muhldorfer’s The Magic Slipper at
the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre. Choreography by Julius Reisinger, controversial
choreographer of the first Swan Lake.
1893
Cinderella choreographed by Marius
Petipa to the music of Baron Schell for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg.
1935
Alan Howard’s Cinderella for Ballet
Rambert. Music by Carl Maria Von Weber.
1945
Cinderella libretto by Nikolai Volkov
presented at the Bolshoi Theatre. Choreography by Rostislav Vladimirovich
Zakharov. Olga Lepshinskaya as Cinderella.
1946
New Cinderella choreography by
Konstantin Mikhailovich Sergejev. Music by Prokofiev. Premiered in Leningrad.
1948
Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella,
performed at Sadlers Wells Ballet Company at the Covent Garden, London.
1963
Vaslav Orlikowsky choreographs the R.
de Larrian production in Paris. Music by Prokofiev.
1964
Cinderella by Oleg Vinogradov, Soviet
dancer and choreographer, for Novosibirsk Company.
1969
The National Ballet of Canada presents
Cinderella. Choreography by Celia Franca. Music by Prokofiev.
1978
William Morgan’s Cinderella presented
by the Ballet Federation of the Philippines. Filipina ballerina Tina Santos as
Cinderella.
1981
Cinderella by Ballet Philippines – the
first Perrault Cinderella ballet danced to a collage of Tchaikovsky’s music.
Libretto by Alice Reyes.
1996
William Morgan created a new ballet
with a more delineated characterization for Cinderella.
2002
Alexei Ratmansky created his version
of Cinderella for the Kirov Ballet.
2013
San
Francisco Ballet premieres Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella, co-produced by
the Dutch National Ballet.
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