Cinderella (Ashton)

There are many versions of the story of Cinderella (the earliest was written down in China in the 9th century) and it has been the basis for a long list of pantomimes, operas, and ballets.

Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, and Enrico Cecchetti choreographed Cinderella for the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in 1893 to the music of Baron Boris Fitinhof-Schell—it was in this splendid production that Pierina Legnani first performed in Russia her celebrated feat of 32 fouettes—but none of the choreography has survived.

Prokofiev and his collaborators were guided by Perrault's version of the story and by the great Tchaikovsky ballet scores, which themselves served the structure of Petipa's choreography.

The choreography of Cinderella is Ashton's homage to the classical tradition of Petipa, as had been Symphonic Variations of two years earlier, albeit on a smaller scale.

In the ballroom, the put-upon, shy Ugly Sister—significantly Ashton's own role—performs a Petipa figure that amounts to her dream of being Odile at Siegfried's ball or the Sugar Plum Fairy.