Prom 52 - Cinderella complete at Proms for first (and last?) time

Prokofiev: Cinderella - complete ballet (1945)

London Symphony Orchestra

Valery Gergiev conductor

22 August 2012, Royal Albert Hall, London

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Sergei Prokofiev

A concert performance of an evening-length ballet is normally enough to set you running for the hills.  But if the ballet is by Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky then it is an entirely different matter.  And if Valery Gergiev is conducting then we have grown accustomed to it being a highlight of the festival.

Valery Gergiev

Gergiev brought his London Symphony Orchestra to the summer Proms festival in the middle of a mini-European tour together.  16 - 19 August saw them performing 4 nights at the Edinburgh Festival in a complete Brahms and Szymanowski symphonies cycle that will be repeated in London in the coming Barbican season.  After tonight's Cinderella, they play 3 consecutive nights at Festivals in Salzburg and Lucerne.  The LSO then heads off to play with other conductors while Gergiev continues onto Stockholm direct for 3 more nights, then returns to the Edinburgh Festival with the Mariinsky for several more nights to round off August.  As it happens conducting Cinderella again.

Such are the schedules of the summer festivals, but what of tonight?  Could they pull a Cinderella without dancers off?  In a word, no. Cinderella is a delightful score and contains some of the greatest moments in Prokofiev's output, such as the stunning midnight clock music and the Act 1 waltz.  Prokofiev's enormous melodic gift combined with his edgy modernism provides the alchemy that lifts this ballet out of the ordinary.  But it does not have the long dramatic lines that Romeo or Sleeping Beauty have and the first Act in particular suffers greatly without the visual dimension, much of it full of sardonic humour as Cinderella's two stepsisters Skinny and Dumpy quarrel.

So, with these artists it was never going to be less than a quality performance, but it did not scale the heights.  History would have told them that no one had done this ballet complete in concert at the Proms before.  Gennady Rozhdestvensky did conduct Act 2 complete once - a sounder choice.
 
And I must comment on the toothpick.  I've grown accustomed to Gergiev directing orchestras without a baton; just his famous fluttering fingers.  He does sometimes use a full length baton.  But tonight he was using a thin 10cm long stick in his right hand.  Have the LSO complained they can't follow his beat?  After all which of the fluttering fingers is marking time?  In his toothpick, there was at least a (tiny) point for the players to focus on.

Peter O'Byrne