(7) For those who have seen other versions of Cinderella, compare them to Ashton's.

I know this topic has be dead for a while, but here goes. Besides Ashton's I've seen:

-the Strukhova video with the Bolshoi (a very young Maximova is 'Spring' in this one ).
-the East Berlin Comic Ballet video (Tom Shilling's choreography) - Tai Chi is performed in the waltz instead of choreography for Cinderella and the Prince .
-San Francisco Ballet's production (an old PBS Great Performances broadcast).
-ABT's -- Baryshnikov's version with giant cat, and the one with D. Walker's designs. Both productions were okay but not as good as Ashton's.
-Paris Opera Ballet (Nureyev's production): Sylvie Guillem as Charlie Chaplin and the Parisians go Hollywood. OK concept but it didn't work for me.

Live performances? Perm Ballet (Vinogradov's production). The issue I have
with this production is that the end of Act 1 looks dangerously similar to "Giselle" Act 2 when the Fairy Godmother appears and works her magic - (choreographic plaigarism)? I tried the Paris production live too; looked much better on video IMO.

Ashton's production is great and has a wealth of wonderful original choreography, but the sisters are too much pantomime for me. I think the original Bolshoi
production (Zakharov's), although very Soviet and very pedestrian, is in concept and execution, the best IMO. I especially love how the coda in Act 2 is done. I wish Ashton would have included the prince's journey and search for Cinderella, and not just finding her 'in the morning.' To me that always seemed too easy an ending with no obstacles for the two to overcome.

I admit, there's something about Ashton's Cinderella (as seen on DVD anyway) that I always resist. I *think* I prefer the point of view the Soviets took on this, I also really dislike that Ashton cut the around the world divertissement (which seemed like such a great Petipa hommage to his silly arbitrary, and great, divertissements). I mean the ballet *isn't*, by classical (or Romeo and Juliet) standards all that long even if you use every bit of Prokofiev's score.

I know Ashton did want it to be a Petipa hommage but I think he missed the boat and I don't like the English Pantomime stepsisters (yes Petipa's ballet had some great men as women roles--Carabosse being the most famous--but this comes from a different tradition altogether). Prokofiev dedicated his score to Tchaikovsky and, while it is much more dissonant, and angular than what we'd ever get from Pyotr, I really hear a lot of Sleeping Beauty in it. Sleeping Beauty reflected through a dark, cracked mirror 50 years later, anyway ;) I think it's one of Prokofiev's finest works, even over Romeo and Juliet (it's funny the score divides peopel so sharply--ballet goers seem to be even more divided on it than they are on Glazunov's Raymonda another score I adore but lots of people don't seem to get and find tuneless).

I wish we had a good document of the Bolshoi's production on stage, or even an ok document of the Kirov's (we sorta do) though the film, as cheesy as it is, has a lot to recommend it. It's a little disappointing to me that neither the Kirov nor the Bolshoi has a traditional, grand, Cinderella in their repertoire anymore, though I've heard positive and negative things about both of their current productions. I guess the original Bolshoi Cinderella was never quite the certified classic that Leonid Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet has been (I know many will disagree with me but I hope the Kirov never loses their production of that). (Oddly the Bolshoi doesn't seem to have Lavrosky's NOR Grigorovich's, nor indeed any production of Romeo and Juliet, which I so associate with them, in their current repertoire!)

My first exposure to this ballet was when I was 11 or 12 and first getting really into ballet and the Kiev ballet came to our little city with their production. I really can't from an adult perspective say if the production (very traditional in the Soviet style) was any good but at the time I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen live, and immediately went out and bought the CD of the score (I was surprised, and still am, at how few good full recordings of the score exist).

I grew up with the Alonso/Strauss version. Will dig some more on the subject, but the sisters here were also too caricature-like. And then waltzes, waltzes,,,and more waltzes.
I liked it anyways.

-The Paris Opera Ballet video starring Sylvie Guillem and Charles Jude in Nureyev's production is the Cinderella I've grown up with. I love its modern setting, challenging choreography, and Guillem who is excellent in the title role.

-While Ashton's Cinderella is a lovely traditional production, and Antoinette Sibley absolutely sparkles in the video (a pity more of her partnership with Dowell was not filmed), I'm never drawn in by it. The pantomime stepsisters are too much for my taste. I don't understand why Cinderella is a servant when there is no ruling-with-an-iron-fist stepmother. And I miss the Prince searching the world for the glass slipper's owner.

-The Bolshoi version with Raisa Struchkova and Gennadi Lediakh captures the mood of Prokofiev's dark score well with its lighting, special effects, creepy gnomes announcing the hours, and very spiteful stepmother and stepsisters. While a bit dated, it is charming.

-Vasiliev's production performed by the Kremlin Ballet has the magic and warmth I found lacking in Ashton's. Ekaterina Maximova and Andris Liepa not only are beautiful dancers, but give well-drawn interpretations of Cinderella and the Prince.

-The only live Cinderella I've seen is the Bolshoi Ballet in Yuri Posokhov's version with Svetlana Zakharova. I think because I have seen and loved Nureyev's production for years and years, I found this one marvelous. I liked the concept with the Storyteller having a hand in moving the story along, set in a sort of surreal world. The choreography was wonderful for the most part. Sergei Filin as the Prince was the highlight of the performance.

Rosa, in a few words you encapsulated for me what I find missing in Ashton's version. I also always found it odd that he says he dropped the Prince's trip around the world for time (when the ballet is very short, for a three act work) and cause he didn't like the music, when I find it some of the best music in the score! Oh well...