Stevenson’s ‘Cinderella’ Loses More Than a Slipper

The good news about Ben Stevenson’s “Cinderella” is that it lasts only two hours and 20 minutes. The other good news is . . . . Well, there isn’t much other good news.

Several American Ballet Theatre dancers did what they could to inject life into this stillborn work over the weekend at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But there’s only so much they could add when there is hardly any choreography.

People move onstage to music, of course, and there are recognizable ballet steps and combinations. But Stevenson’s choreography--created for the National Ballet of Washington in 1970 and taken up by ABT last year--is so threadbare, unmusical and unimaginative that the dancers might as well be marking time.

He’s best in the rough-and-tumble slapstick comedy of the two stepsisters, danced by men as in the British pantomime tradition or even ABT’s Baryshnikov-Anastos 1984 production (although their men danced, at least in the early years, on point). Fans of pratfalls will get their fill, and then some.

But sooner or later in a ballet, people have to dance, and whenever they do, your heart sinks and you wonder what Stevenson was thinking about. The disappointments begin as soon as the Fairy Godmother brings in the seasonal fairies to dance academic exercises for Cinderella before she goes to the ball. But they don’t end there.

The court waltzes are prosaic and empty. Even worse are the pas de deux for Cinderella and her Prince. Stevenson throws every step he can think of or has seen in other classical ballets onstage for their ballroom scene, hoping something will take and cohere. But it doesn’t. It’s a mess of effects, including a singularly ugly (though difficult) maneuver of slinging a fish dive from one side to the other.

To be sure, the choreographer has to deal with Prokofiev’s difficult score. Finished in the war-torn Soviet Union in the ‘40s, Prokofiev’s music is as sour, conflicted and disillusioned as it is lyrical. Moreover, it had to follow the party line of caricaturing the ruling class.

The combination has defeated more than one choreographer, and despite the box-office and emotional appeal of the story, productions tend to come and go, Frederick Ashton’s for the Royal Ballet being the most enduring.

But Stevenson treats the music as if it’s a romantic score by Glazunov, giving us grand lifts, poses and extensions even when the music is grinding out ominous and spiky dissonances. (He cuts the Prince’s journey, however.) Of two Cinderellas seen over the weekend, Julie Kent on Saturday evening proved the more dramatically engaged and engaging. Lovely in placement and line, attentive to detail, sensitive in characterization, Kent pulled the audience into the story to share what few moments of genuine suffering and happiness there were. Her Prince was the elegant, attentive and generous Robert Hill.

Dancing the Soviet-style Jester that night was the high-flying, ever-smiling Angel Corella, who seemed more suited to this character role than to the Prince he danced Friday night. For all that, he made a one-dimensional jester, quite lacking the sardonic edge evidenced by his predecessor Friday, Gil Boggs.

As the Prince, Corella was steadfastly sunny, beaming the same smile at Cinderella’s discarded glass slipper as he showed when he first saw her. His Cinderella was the strong and lyrical Paloma Herrera. Both danced powerfully. Both projected only a generalized sense of character. Neither seemed credibly involved with the other.

Veronica Lynn was a sunny Fairy Godmother on Friday; Irina Dvorovenko looked even more warm and involved on Saturday.

The Four Seasons were danced securely. Ashley Tuttle was Spring on Friday; Oksana Konobeyeva was poised in her first Spring on Saturday. Katie Lydon danced Summer at both performances, as did Sandra Brown as Autumn. Martha Brown danced Winter on Friday as if she believed in the specificity of the season; Lynn was more generalized Saturday.

Brian Reeder was the aggressive stepsister the first night; Andrei Dokukin took the role Saturday. John Selya was the nicer stepsister (everything is relative) Friday; Vladislav Kalinin, on Saturday. Elizabeth Ferell was the nasty stepmother the first night; Lucette Katerndalh, the second.

Michael Owen was the hapless father Friday; Ethan Brown, Saturday. In thankless tasks, Griff Braun, Clinton Luckett, Gennadi Saveliev and Yu Xin were the hard-working Dragonflies both evenings.

Charles Barker conducted sensitively on both occasions.

David Walker, of the Royal Ballet, created the elaborate and heavy sets and costumes. Tony Tucci was the lighting designer.