When Strauss Fits the Glass Slipper

From our first glimpse of Armin Heinemann’s comic-strip front curtain, the National Ballet of Cuba’s “Cinderella” proclaims itself a cartoon retelling of the enduring Perrault fairy tale--a version in which character and mood will remain subordinate to once-upon-a-time narrative.

Heinemann’s childlike sets and costumes for the production reinforce that initial impression with flattened perspectives, bold colors and such whimsies as tropical palm-court architecture with ermine trim: a “Cinderella” straight from the Sunday funnies. His designs, however, prove only the first of many surprises the Cubans have brought to the Orange County Performing Arts Center this week in their first visit to the U.S. in 16 years.

Maybe the biggest surprise: The musical engine that drives this “Cinderella” (a.k.a. “La Cenicienta”) isn’t the slow, sour Prokofiev score that has oppressed choreographers, dancers and audiences since 1945, but a spectacularly buoyant and virtually unknown one by Johann Strauss Jr. composed at the very end of his life and the 19th century. Even the stroke of midnight at the momentous palace ball fails to halt or dim Strauss’ breathlessly bright and fast collection of Viennese dance tunes. Unfortunately, the score is played on tape--reportedly at the Cubans’ own request--but still surges and soars with irrepressible high spirits.

Cuban choreographer Pedro Consuegra not only edited the score for maximum contrast and adjusted the libretto accordingly but inserted other Strauss compositions that move the ballet squarely into the Imperial St. Petersburg tradition. Indeed, the result turns out to be not only a cartoon “Cinderella” but a cartoon 19th century Russian ballet, complete with a Petipa-style grand pas de deux, a wedding divertissement full of the usual delirious processions-to-nowhere and diversionary balleticized folklore--even the bravura 32 fouettes for the ballerina that date not from Petipa’s “Swan Lake” but his “Cinderella” of 1893.

Sometimes the gulf between Cinderella’s romantic longings and the cheery oom-pah-pah of the accompaniment widens so dangerously that the whole project threatens to plunge into incoherent silliness. But Strauss always knew how to write fabulous dance-music, and the National Ballet of Cuba always knew how to dance with fabulous vitality, so there’s unfailingly something invigorating to see and hear, even when the components don’t match and there’s no original choreography to speak of. Moreover, Consuegra is smart enough to wind up the plot within the first 90 minutes (including intermission) and devote the final half-hour to pure celebration.

His biggest miscalculation may have been expanding the Fairy Godmother role until it overshadows Cinderella’s. His model is clearly the Lilac Fairy in “The Sleeping Beauty,” but here the character not only chaperones Cinderella at the ball but dances major solos of her own throughout the ballet. Moreover, in the Tuesday cast--the first of five slates of principals to dance in Costa Mesa--long-legged Laura Hormingon exuded such freshness, elegance, technical freedom and emotional generosity that she stole the spotlight from the evening’s prima ballerina, the gracious but small-scale Alihaydee Carren~o.

Correct but tense in tests of balance, Carren~o executed her fouettes thrillingly, adding double-turns and daring changes of directional focus for extra bravura. If she ultimately seemed more in love with the palace than the Prince, the feeling wasn’t mutual: Osmay Molina ignored his surroundings and looked thunderstruck by his uninvited guest, courting her with plenty of ardor and partnering finesse, along with serviceable though scarcely overwhelming virtuosity.

Supplying additional male firepower as well as jaunty humor: Victor Gili and Vladimir Alvarez as, respectively, the dancing master and Prince’s brother (a typical balletic jester role), who eventually pairs off with the greedy, petulant and overdressed but scarcely ugly Ugly Stepsisters, Anael Martin and Gloria Hernandez. Jose Zamorano brought enormous gusto to the drag role of the Stepmother and was rewarded by Consuegra and Strauss with a saucy can-can solo.

The hordes of hard-working and well-drilled czardas, mazurka and fandango dancers confirmed Havana as a center for top-of-the-line Soviet-style ballet training, with a life-affirming energy and sweetness currently in short supply inside Mother Russia. How ridiculous that it’s been 16 years since we’ve seen them. And how typical that they’re dancing the first of only two American engagements this season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Right now in the Southland, when it comes to big ballet, OCPAC is the only game in town.

* National Ballet of Cuba dances “Cinderella,” with changes of lead dancers, tonight and Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 1 p.m., in the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $10-$60. (714) 556-ARTS.