Cinderella

A boarding-school in the middle of the 20th century. In this setting, to music by Sergei Prokofiev, Youri Vámos re-tells the story of «Cinderella”. At first lonely and unhappy, despised and isolated by her fellow-pupils, «Cinderella” gains new self-respect, inner strength and ultimately beauty though a masquerade sourcing great love.

On the plane of dance Youri Vámos draws on the entire stylistic variety of Prokofiev's music. In his version «Cinderella” is far removed from the traditional figure of the fairy-tale, and in line with Prokofiev's concept she becomes «a living being who feels and lives and whose fate moves us«.

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Duisburg's «Cinderella”, which was celebrated with great enthusiasm by the premiere audience, is [...] not a lying fairy tale put into scene in order to show off in extravagant costumes and elegant movements. Vámos proves that the classical ballet is well able to change a traditional fairy tale subject into a play with sensitive, even contemporary human beings instead of dancing robots. There are not many choreographers left today who can translate action into dance as excellently as the chef of the Rheinoper ballet.

Marina Antonova presents a touching as well as enchanting study of character. Great also, the Sixth Former/Prince Michal Matys. Both of them dancer personalities, excellently talented to realise Vámos' concept and thus to lay the foundation for a truly entertaining evening, with the ensemble wonderfully integrating itself.

Michal Matys dances the dreaming [Prince] with a gentle lyrical expression and a soft springing musicality, which for moments carries one away fabulously enchanted.

The premiere of Prokofiev's «Cinderella” in the Duisburg opera house became a tumultuously applauded success for the choreographer and for the new dancing perfect couple Marina Antonova and Michal Matys. The two dancers combine high Danse d' école with expressive ballet drama. [...] Without a trace of false emotion Antonova and Matys then stage the recognition scene. Michal Matys, 25, with flawless technique, feather-weight Danseur Noble, flies through the air weightlessly and courts the shy Cinderella. They both do without breathtaking perfection, but instead gently approach each other before dancing a fantastically sensitive Pas-de-deux.

It is quite simply great fun to watch Vámos playing with levels in Michael Scott's stage set radiating in pink light. For example when the great Pas-de deux, with extremely condensed emotion, presented by the again overwhelming Marina Antonova and her highly alert partner Michal Matys, is, in a way, twisted in irony before it starts off: in a down-to-earth dance floor Pas-de deux of the refreshing First Year pupils Tomoko Nagai and Cédric Anselme.