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Cinderella (Fitinhof-Schell)

Cinderella
Cinderella -title role -Pierina Legnani -1893.jpg
The Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani in her costume for act I of the Imperial Ballet's production of Cinderella. St. Petersburg, 1893.
Choreographer Enrico Cecchetti (Acts I and III)
Lev Ivanov (Act II)
Supervised by Marius Petipa
Music Baron Boris Fitinhoff-Schell
Libretto Countess Lidiya Pashkova and Ivan Vsevolozhsky
Premiere 17 December [O.S. 5 December] 1893
Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia
Design Heinrich Legovt (act I)
Matvey Shishkov (act II)
Mikhail Bocharov (act III)
Genre Ballet-féerie

Cinderella (ru. «Золушка», Zolushka) (fr. Cendrillon) is a ballet-féerie in three acts, with the choreographyof Enrico Cecchetti (Acts I and III) and Lev Ivanov (Act II) supervised by Marius Petipa. Music is by Baron Boris Fitinhoff-Schell; the libretto is by Lidia Pashkova (ru: Лидия Александровна Пашкова) and Ivan Vsevolozhsky. It was first presented by the Imperial Ballet on 17 December [O.S. 5 December] 1893 at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire.

Although the libretto of this work was greatly criticized by the St. Petersburg critics and balletomanes for putting more emphasis on spectacle than on drama and story-telling, the production was an enormous success due to the overwhelming ovation given to the Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani in the title role. Legnani's début on the opening night of Cinderella caused a sensation in the audience of the Mariinsky Theatre, and she was universally praised by the St. Petersburg critics, with the critic of the Peterburgskaya gazeta reporting that her dancing reached a level of "...unprecedented perfection." The theatre critic for the Peterburgskii listok reported that Legnani executed "...the most dizzying difficulties of ballet technique with absolute ease, without the least tension or fatigue...", and that she "...revealed such perfection of technique and such strength as are difficult to imagine." He went on to state that Legnani "...must unquestionably be counted among the greatest virtuosas of choreography which Petersburg had ever seen."

The most celebrated scene of Cinderella was the ball in the throne room of the castle in the second act, which included an elaborate Grand Pas d'action in the 19th century style for the characters Cinderella, the Prince, soloists and the corps de ballet. Also successful was the spectacular Night tableaux of Act III, with the dancers and scenery for each respective number representing the Nile, Grenada and Paris with each number beginning by the dancers and scenery rising out of a lake at the back of the stage with the wave of the Good Fairy's wand.


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