Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fairy tales in performance arts
- Korea National Ballet's Cinderella (Jan 29 to 31, 2010, Seoul Arts Center) is more dynamic than the traditional presentation and offers unique touches, twists and theater craft (eg Cinderella's mother and father are both shown in a touching relationship at the start before the mother dies and returns as a fairy-in-a-corset to look after Cindy the rest of the story; Cinderella is barefoot for most of the performance - including for the ball, in which her feet are dipped in a sparkling sequin dust; etc)
If that version of Cinderella looks interesting to you, it is available commercially on DVD. Not the Korean production, but the original, with Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part is how Cinderella's father keeps chasing after the fairy godmother (the dead mother) through the ball scene with this haunted, lovelorn look on his face, as if he isn't sure what he is seeing is true. Can't believe his eyes. Very sad and romantic.