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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Glowing cinders
By David BlakeCinderella, Cairo Opera Ballet Company; Cairo Opera Orchestra, conductor: Ivan Filev, choreographer and director: Abdel-Moneim Kamel; Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 13-14 January 2000
Last year's performance was a chilly spectacle. This year's Cinderella is a warm, direct narrative of a great story held aloft by Prokofiev's unique music. The melodies seem to get better and fresher as each production passes, and the orchestra, under Ivan Filev, has reached a mastery over the strange, renversé working-out of the miraculous embroidery of the score which keeps the entire production alive and fresh. Prokofiev is not an easy writer to deal with. He loved paradox and surprise, and never delivered anything ordinary.
In this production much is made by producer and conductor of the strange, almost contradictory way Prokofiev constructs climax. He prepares the musical feeling with base rumblings. One is prepared for something really big to come, and the music strums along like a great guitar -- then it stops, and we are left with silence, meditative and profound, a breathing gap. The pattern never really begins again. His restless genius has set him on newer paths. These pauses have always allowed for drama, and acting opportunities not usually allowed in purely classical ballet.
This reviewer saw the two performances of 13 and 14 January. The first night showed Erminia Kamel as Cinderella, the following night Alexandra Volkhvskaya danced the role. Visually these two ballerinas have a lot in common -- both have perfect legs and feet. Their ankles in motion are as limpid and undulatory as sea waves as they bourrée across the stage. They have a sort of beige colouring and a lovely long line -- beauty in action, but there the comparison ends.
Erminia Kamel has become a very fine actress. The years do not improve dancers' techniques, but they do dramatic insight and sheer impact. These she has acquired, making the complexities of the Ashton-Kamel Cinderella into a genuine person of gravity and loving kindness. Since it is a role about kindness, gentleness and almost everything unfashionable at the moment, Erminia Kamel could have settled for sweetness. This she does not do -- never just dance, always insight into the character. So her Cinders is as real as Cocteau's Beauty.
Her walk on stage is real, forward and totally in character as a person, never just a ballerina's waddle. Her handshake, like her appearance, is firm with an almost peasant gravity, like a light-bathed girl in a Vermeer painting. She is practical, embracing and full of unsentimental sympathy. All this makes the character of Cinders perfectly reasonable. Prokofiev's music, which surrounds her, is never for Erminia Kamel but for Cinderella of the loving heart and honest demeanour.
Prokofiev seems to say there are so many things close at hand that are magic, and this production bears out the dictum. It is a story about time and a shoe, and the abiding joy of this production is the fact that everyone concerned realises that this music is the shining stream of genius which binds the entire thing together.
Abdel-Moneim Kamel takes his time over the great climaxes that occur: one in Act One, two in Act Two and the final fluorescent, irrationally beautiful one with which the story ends. All through the long score Prokofiev has been probing, playing orchestral tricks with time's noises -- smoke screens of dark tick-tocking sounds without stop, tiny ticks and great, thrilling, endlessly strumming ones like a huge guitar, beating time for the dancers. It is the loveliest, liveliest score he ever wrote, far surpassing Romeo in spite of Romeo's savage grandeur.
At times in the pauses everything has stopped except the heartbeats of Cinderella herself. At the end of Act Two the entire architecture of the music breaks up into a gorgeous, calamitous din. Time strikes -- midnight. The theatre pulsates with the noise like a great bell. It tolls for Cinderella, to keep her feet on the ground. Her simple rag-dress endures, surviving the glamour and bitterness of the collapsing dark star that has given up life.
And the tale moves into drama, fast, with the realisation that beautiful things, unreal things are right with us. Our greed and cynicism have tarnished life around us. It remains for Cinders and the failing fire light of her dreams and pulsating heart to rekindle hope and magic. Heady stuff for 2001. But in this work of magic everything about life falls into place and into its correct level of importance. Cinders herself has become beauty, and the monster has been relegated to the cupboard of childhood, which is actually where Prokofiev begins the story -- rags and old clothes, glitter and torn scraps of splendour are all that is left, except for the spirit.
Alexandra Volkhvskaya, the second night's Cinderella, brought little character to her role but during the long series of climaxes and dance meditations she gave what she has to a high degree -- style, gentleness and complete finesse, not so much Cinderella but a great person, immaculate and high-mannered. The new prince looked almost too young for the tasks ahead of him -- solos and double work, but it was not the case. He looked charming, eager, with long high jumps and great strength, and he made the prince a person, not merely a series of steps.
The sisters -- they were less nasty than often. In fact their quality of gauchness was in the end endearing, and their understanding of the real Cinderella brought the work to a successful end. Varonin, as the father, fitted perfectly with Cinderella, and the clown, Noarin Mohamed, made of himself a splendid natural danceur noble in clown getup. The four boys, part of the prince's set-up, were all grandly handsome in their roles as leapers and balancers.
The four Seasonal Fairies, tall, magnetic and dressed in darkly resplendent hues of bronze, gold and storm grey were sensational; they made of the first climax in Act One a high point of classic dance -- the best scene at the Opera since the New York Harlem Ballet and Alvin Ailey, surpassing even their glitter. Abdel-Moneim Kamel knows clothes. This entire production set a standard even he will find hard to surpass. Some of the colour ensembles will stay in the mind as some of the Cairo Ballet's greatest days.
As the first production of the new era this show is a happy augury. Maybe next year we can have a repeat. They do Aida forever. Why not this Cinderella success story.
