Cinderella review: Marianela Nuñez shines in Royal Ballet’s restaging of Frederick Ashton classic

The Royal Ballet’s new Cinderella is lavish but disjointed. This staging of Frederick Ashton’s 1948 ballet swirls with video design, illusions and big, frothy costumes, often pulling in different directions. Yet it’s held together by the dancing, and most of all by Marianela Nuñez’s radiant heroine.

Ashton’s ballet is a classic, but a tricky one. Conducted by Koen Kessels, the Prokofiev score is spikier than you might expect for a fairytale, with a dark undertow to its dazzling waltzes. There’s so much music for the Ugly Sisters, but so little for the Prince and Cinderella together.

This new version, staged by Wendy Ellis Somes and Gary Avis, adds more disparate elements. The ambition and energy are a step up from The Royal Ballet’s previous production, but don’t help the ballet’s coherence.

Finn Ross’s video design frames the season fairies with gorgeous, blooming images, from summer flowers to ice. It’s a world away from the ballroom scene, a prim doll’s house chateau designed by Tom Pye. If the contrast is deliberate, it doesn’t come into focus. Alexandra Byrne’s costumes are somewhere between the Regency and the 1950s, with acid colours, big skirts and bigger hair.

The Ugly Sisters remain a problem. Originally danced by Ashton and his fellow choreographer Frederick Helpmann, they’ve built up extra bits of business over the decades, now firmly baked in. The slapstick feels heavy. The best bits are smaller, more spontaneous: Luca Acri’s innocent delight at the wig he’ll wear to the ball, or Gary Avis’s pride in his correct foot positions.

But Cinderella has wonderful dancing, too. Ashton responds to the music’s sharp edges and stop-start rhythms, creating strange and brilliant geometries. The corps de ballet and the courtiers are glamorous but unsettling: they’ll create perfect classical lines, turn their backs on us, change direction when you least expect it.

open image in gallery

The season fairies are cast from strength. Anna Rose O’Sullivan is a buoyant spring, while there’s a touch of grandeur to Melissa Hamilton’s summer. Yuhui Choe is a giddy, whirling autumn. As winter, Mayara Magri reaches out with icy power.

Nuñez’s Cinderella is the production’s heart. She’s always had a quality of joy in her dancing, and it lights up the ballet. Arriving at the ball, she descends the stairs on pointe – a challenge that becomes dreamlike. And her chemistry with Vadim Muntagirov’s elegant Prince makes the most of every moment they’re both on stage. From her kitchen dreams to the bravura of her ballroom solos, there’s a tenderness running right through the performance: a warmth to go with the glitter.

‘Cinderella’ runs at the Royal Opera House until 3 May