This week Moscow City Ballet is dancing in Richmond in Cinderella and Nutcracker. I caught a performance of Cinderella in Brighton last week and found it on the whole rather enjoyable.<P>The production is very much geared to younger audiences and is danced with a sense of fun all the way through. The ballet opens at the court of a highly comic king and his caricatured ministers, preparing for a ball and sending out invitations. Next we meet the ugly sisters and the wicked stepmother. As Russians don’t have the pantomime tradition of the dame, they are always danced by girls, though I do have fond memories of Vladimir Vasiliev camping it up in a mini skirt as the wicked stepmother in his production of this ballet. The sisters are called Skinny and Dumpy but not surprisingly, being ballet dancers, both could answer to Skinny. Stepmother Alexandra Moiseenko looked a bit like Penelope Keith and has an amorous encounter with the Minister of Dancing when he arrives with their invitation. Father isn’t drunk, just henpecked.<P>Cinderella herself is danced by Elena Osokina, wearing the plaits that seem compulsory in Russian productions. She is a very pretty girl with a gentle, wistful expression but the sisters don’t give her such a hard time as others I’ve seen. As soon as she is left alone, her fairy godmother arrives with the fairies of the seasons and it’s off to the ball.<P>Act two follows the usual pattern of the ballet. Cinderella arrives to be admired by all before meeting the Prince and falling in love. Prokofiev’s ominous musical clock reminds her its midnight and she exits minus a shoe. The prince declares he will marry whoever has that particular shoe size and (nice touch this) the ladies of the court mob him, waving their feet in his face.<P>The prince’s world tour takes him to the lair of some dodgy giggling pirates and some oriental pilgrims similar to those we are familiar with from Le Corsaire. All to no avail of course and as usual he finds true love in Cinderella’s kitchen. The last scene is a loving duet for Cinderella and her Prince.<P>The kids in the audience seemed to love it and loudly cheered the King for the simple reason that he was the funniest person on stage. The dancing was of a standard to satisfy discerning ballet fans and the orchestra played the Prokofiev score with sensitivity, however the sets were uninspired and I felt that the humour covered a lack of theatrical magic. Take your sprogs they’ll love it.<BR>

Swan Lake
King's theatre, Glasgow run ended ***
By Ellie Carr for The Sunday Herald

In a week in which Scotland was unusually overflowing with Russian ballet (Grigorovich also brought their Romeo And Juliet to Edinburgh, while Moscow City introduced their Sleeping Beauty to Glasgow) -- this was always going to be a safe bet for box office.
The corps are well drilled in the precision geometry that characterises the 'white acts' . The principals (particularly Gaukhar Ussina as Odette/Odile) are technically proficient and occasionally delightful.

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MOSCOW CITY BALLET in Scotland

Scottish audiences are being treated to three separate performances from the Moscow City Ballet, a 70-strong collective of elite principals, corps de ballet and soloists.

Starting off in Aberdeen tomorrow night, the MCB - one of Russia’s leading ballet companies - will take on Giselle, the traditional tale of love and betrayal by romantic French poet, Theophile Gautier, and set to music by Adolphe Adam.

It tells the dramatic story of country girl Giselle who falls in love with a prince who is set to marry another. Overcome with grief she dies and joins the Wilis of the Forest, girls who have been wronged by their betrothed, who try to make the prince dance until he dies at Giselle’s graveside, while she attempts to save him by dancing in his place.

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