San Francisco Ballet

Yuan Yuan Tan in Wheeldon's Cinderella © // © Erik Tomasson The heart of the old, the spirit of the new. Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella © tells the same uplifting story people have heard for centuries, but this is a ballet full of innovations and modern twists. A co-production of San Francisco Ballet and Dutch National Ballet, Cinderella © premiered in Amsterdam in 2012, then flew across the Atlantic to make its US premiere in San Francisco in 2013. "Each of Christopher's works has something unique," says Helgi Tomasson, SF Ballet's artistic director and principal choreographer. Wheeldon is an acclaimed dancemaker, in demand at companies worldwide. Formerly a resident choreographer at New York City Ballet and now an artistic associate at The Royal Ballet, he caused a sensation on Broadway with the musical An American in Paris. And he's a frequent presence at SF Ballet, with 13 works in the repertory. Cinderella © was his eighth commission and first full-length story ballet for the Company. Tomasson's words about originality ring true in Wheeldon's Cinderella © . You'll find no fairy godmother, no pumpkin coach, no clock striking midnight — but you won't miss them a bit when a tree comes alive and "dances," or when Cinderella shows backbone and her Prince's charm runs deep. And you won't miss them when the dancing and the storytelling come from Christopher Wheeldon. "What I wanted to do," the choreographer says, "was echo the darkness in the music by taking some of the themes from the Brothers Grimm version rather than the [Charles] Perrault version," with its fairy godmother and pumpkin coach. "The Grimm version is more serious and a bit darker, centered around nature and the spirit of mother." That's where he got the idea of a tree that grows from the grave of Cinderella's mother, "the deliverer of all things magic, which I think is more poetic [than a fairy godmother] and quite beautiful," he says. "There are comic moments because there's comedy written into the music, but it's a more serious Cinderella in a way." That music, written by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev in 1940 but shelved for several years during World War II, made its first appearance when Bolshoi Ballet premiered Cinderella in November 1945, choreographed by Rostislav Zakharov. "I love it," says Music Director and Principal Conductor Martin West about the score. "It's immediately striking, and astonishingly clever the way the themes come around, the way he could create an atmosphere out of something very simple." Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, West says, "came from the heart, but Cinderella is more cerebral. It takes longer to get into, but once you've lived with it, it starts to eat at you. Some of it is so beautiful." Beautiful enough, in fact, that Cinderella's music is the main reason Principal Dancer Maria Kochetkova had wanted to dance this ballet. As a student at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, she watched a video of the ballet (with Russian ballerina Raisa Struchkova in the title role) and dreamed of dancing it someday. "Not because of the pas de deux or unusual costumes or story that I wanted to act," Kochetkova says. "It was because of the music." Her favorite parts change with her mood, she says. "Sometimes it's the waltz; sometimes I really like the first-act music." Even though the story is a fairy tale, she says, "the score makes it so realistic and dramatic." As a ballet, Cinderella has a lengthy pedigree. It debuted in St. Petersburg in 1893, choreographed by Marius Petipa with Enrico Cecchetti and Lev Ivanov, famous "fathers" of classical ballet. (This was when ballerina Pierina Legnani first whipped out an unheard-of 32 consecutive fouettés — pirouettes in which one leg repeatedly extends and whips in, foot to knee — a feat that is now a standard of virtuosity.) The West had to wait until 1938 to see a Cinderella, and when the chance came it was Michel Fokine's one-act version in London, which added the role of Cinderella's cat. In 1948, Sir Frederick Ashton made a Cinderella for Sadler's Wells Ballet in London, CINDERELLA © PRODUCTION CREDITS Music: Cinderella, Op. 87 by Sergei Prokofiev, used by arrangement with G. Schirmer, Inc., publisher and copyright owner. Masks constructed by Julian Crouch. Projection Programmer, Patrick Southern. Scenic construction by Het Muziektheater Scenic and Paint Shop. Special thanks to Oliver Haller, Head of Costume Department for Dutch National Ballet. Costume construction by Das Gewand, Maßschneiderei Rainer Schoppe, Lowland Tailors, Sacha Keir and Phil Reynolds, Kim Schouten, Esther Datema, Bert Nuhaan, and Klaus Schreck. By Cheryl A. Ossola PROGRAM NOTES 2017 SEASON GUIDE SAN FRANCISCO BALLET 81

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