Monte Carlo Ballet's Cinderella at the Belfast Festival is a splendidly danced, excitingly choreographed, ultra-sophisticated modern ballet. What it is not is a fairy tale for children.
Jean-Christophe Maillot is concerned with the psychological implications of the plot. That the Fairy is the spirit of Cinderella's dead mother, to whom her father returns at the end, having behaved more like Cinderella's boyfriend than her father earlier, is confusing enough, but with characters like The Pleasure Superintendents and the only recognisable telling of the well-known story being a grotesque send-up as shown to Cinderella by the Fairy, I defy anyone to make sense of the goings-on without a lengthy study of the synopsis.
Alina Lagoas' Fairy and Nicholas Khan's Father are choreographically as well as factually as important as Cantalupo's Cinderella and Chris Roelandt's Prince, despite the latter pair's touching falling-in-love duet, but all four dance and act brilliantly, uniting in a delightful pas de quatre in the ballroom scene.
Ernest Pignon-Ernest's set of constantly shifting panels drew applause when gauzes in the likeness of billowing sails appeared above a rippling blue cloth sea as the Prince searched for his beloved, though it is a drawing of her besequinned bare feet he carries instead of a glass slipper, and JΘr⌠me Kaplan's costumes are remarkable, most hung over frames, making the Stepmother look like a bird of prey.
Prokofiev's wonderful music is finely played by the Ulster Orchestra, conducted by David Garforth, but I suspect I would have enjoyed the evening more if I had stopped trying to follow the plot sooner.
Last performance tonight