While David Bintley is already an experienced creator of full-length narrative ballets, Cinderella still requires a new approach. ‘There is a very definite classical model to the ballet’, says David. It’s grown entirely out of the music, and so there is a variation for the Prince and a variation for Cinderella. There are set pas de deux, and group works, and classical forms to readdress, which I always enjoy doing. But previous full-length ballets that I’ve done have not had this form; Sylvia is the closest that I’ve ever come to it.’
The structure of the work has changed a few times over the past months, as David has resolved how the story will play out on stage. ‘At one point we thought it might be a very nice idea to run the second and third acts together’, he says, ‘because the third act tends to be a bit short. Narratively, and dramatically, it could have worked very well, but unfortunately it would have given us a first act of 35 minutes and a second act of over an hour, even with some cuts we looked at. That’s just an uncomfortable shape, so we reverted back to three acts, as is traditional.’
Designer John Macfarlane had originally designed the piece to be a two-act ballet, and so from a technical standpoint all the sets and costumes could be turned around in such a way. But David admits that it has given them some breathing space. ‘The stage crew, certainly, are very pleased that they get more time for that transition,’ he says, ‘and Cinderella herself gets a bit of a breather and a chance to get out of her finery and back into her rags after the ball.’
The Director has already revealed that he often looks ahead to his next project before a new ballet is completed, and enjoys the ‘cross pollination’ of ideas between contrasting works. However in this instance there is less scope for influence. ‘The next piece that I’ll do will probably have some similarities with Cinderella – it’s a full-length piece that I’m doing with the New National Ballet of Japan and it does recall the classic forms. So Cinderella will no doubt have some bearing on that, but both will be miles away from E=mc²!’
Birmingham Hippodrome
