Cinderella

Yesterday we went to see SF Ballet's production of Cinderella.  A brand new show for this ballet which had its US premier on Friday.  We took BART to Civic Center and walked the 2 blocks to the War Memorial Opera House.  It was a pleasant walk past City Hall, the Main Library which is huge.  It was a nice but windy day. We met my three sisters-in-law, mother-in-law and niece-in-law.  We have never been to the Opera House before.  It is gorgeous inside.

We have never seen a professional ballet before and didn't quite know what to expect.  We had never seen this version of Cinderella before.  This is not the Disney version.  It is based on the Brothers Grimm and Perrault Fairy Tales.  The staging was complex and delightful.  Sometimes there was so much going on that watching one part of the scene I know I missed other things.  For instance, the dances of the Spirits around the tree when Cinderella was being transformed.  The scene started small with strange mysterious characters and built to a climax of Cinderella dressed for the ball with a flowing train flying in the wind atop of a carriage represented by the fates who accompany her through out the piece.  I told you it wasn't Disney.

This was a spectacular version the set designs, transitions between scenes, costumes and effects were astonishing.  The dancing was not just graceful and beautiful but a part of the story.  There was also some comic moments in the dancing and the story which was a surprise and added to the story line.  The music composed by Sergei Prokofiev was beautiful and dark  and performed wonderfully by the Orchestra.
When we left after the show we walked down the street with the crowd that had been at the ballet an odd mix of casual and formal sneakers and dressing shoes.  By then the wind had picked up if we had Cinderella dresses we would have been spectacular, too.  Rode BART home and stopped for dinner at Arby's.