A journey from dark to light, rags to riches, the timeless story of Cinderella is brought to life, complete with wicked stepsisters and a wrathful stepmother, a charming fairy godmother, a handsome prince and, of course, a good and beautiful Cinderella. Charmian Smith talks to Christopher Hampson and Tracy Grant Lloyd, who created the Royal New Zealand Ballet's current touring production.
Making a ballet is about creating magic in the theatre rather than just making a dance, according to Christopher Hampson. The London-based choreographer has been back in New Zealand to restage his 2007 production of Cinderella for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. It plays in Dunedin at the Regent Theatre on August 18 and 19.
"I still get excited about creating something that changes people's perception of things. That's the real draw, to be able to work with an audience that way, and I always consider an audience. I think it dictates the sort of works I create," he says.
"When I was a kid I used to go to the theatre and run down to the front and look at the orchestra, which excited me enormously, and I couldn't understand people going out at interval. I wanted to stay and see the curtain and what was going on behind the curtain excited me."
So in this production he has removed the curtain and created vignettes so the audience can see the story continuing on stage before the show and during the intervals.
The overture is dark, he says, and during it people gather in the rain for Cinderella's mother's funeral.
The child lays a rose on the grave, which grows into a tree, a central motif in the production and where much of the magic happens - and the ugly stepsisters start their bullying.
During the first interval footmen prepare a chandelier for the ball and, during the second, shoemakers try, unsuccessfully, to copy the fine glass slipper.
"It's a link with what you've just seen and keeps the continuity going," he says.
Prokofiev's score was written in the 1940s and having danced in it many times, Hampson knows it well - you can hear when the ugly sisters come in; there are beautiful love themes; and the narrative goes from dark at the beginning through a journey to light at the end, he says.
However, he's created his own version, inspired by many different tellings of the Cinderella story and has tailored it to the score.
"I wanted not to have a Cinderella who tried on a shoe in front of 1500 people and, once I discovered the rose theme that runs throughout, it solved the problem."
His role in restaging the show after five years is less choreographic and more directorial, drawing out character, humour and timing from the three different casts who take turns to dance the show.
The three Cinderellas are very different and the stepsisters all have their own comic characteristics, he says.
Hampson has created several shows for the RNZ Ballet, including the acclaimed Romeo and Juliet in 2004, but this will be his last show for it as this week he took up a full-time position as artistic director of Scottish Ballet.
"It's on to a new chapter. I'm ready to settle down in one base and bring my talents to bear on one company. It's a new horizon for me as I've been freelance for 13 or 14 years, since I stopped dancing," he said.
Restaging Cinderella has allowed him and designer Tracy Grant Lloyd to revisit and refine the lighting, timing, set and some of the costumes.
"In the first production we didn't get the opportunity to complete all the costumes the way we wanted to, but this time we had the time.
"It's just more embellishment and more beauty," Grant Lloyd said.
In particular they have remade Cinderella's ball tutu and cloak, decorated with crystals made specially for the company by the Swarovski factory in Austria.
Grant Lloyd describes herself as a bit of a magpie and her style as a fusion of classical and contemporary.
The rose motif in this production lent itself to Art Nouveau, but she also drew on 18th-century French paintings for the costumes, she said.
"We are obsessed with perfection and if we get the opportunity to improve on it we will, within reason."
See it
The Royal New Zealand Ballet's Cinderella plays at the Regent Theatre in Dunedin on August 18 at 7.30pm and August 19 at 2.30, and in Invercargill's Civic Theatre on August 14 at 7.30pm and August 15 at 6.30pm.
