Photo by Mark Frohna
Beautiful dancing is its own reward but Michael Pink is a choreographer who gives his characters substantial inner lives. It’s up to the dancers to reveal his thinking. His 2009 production of Prokofiev’s Cinderella was the first I’d seen of his work. I loved it because I saw dancers acting. I’ve seen every show since. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing his new Cinderella performed, for once, by both its casts. Everyone’s grown since 2009, including this writer.
Annia Hidalgo, in her debut as Milwaukee Ballet’s newest leading artist, gave, I think, a perfect performance in the title role. At the Saturday matinee, the new ballroom pas de deux for Cinderella and the Prince, played by Davit Hovhannisyan, was one of those great ballet moments when choreographer, dancers and musicians combine in some profound way that’s peculiar to this art. Dancing without ego, the characters seemed to find increasingly wondrous possibilities in their partnership, drawing strength and confidence from one another until there was only tenderness and gratitude.
When the excellent Luz San Miguel and Alexandre Ferreira danced the same steps on opening night, the result was merely lovely. San Miguel is a polished artist; Ferreira is young and conscientious; perhaps he was intimidated. Lacking chemistry, their roles were almost overshadowed by the ugly stepsisters, whose stylized absurdity was taken to dizzying comic heights by Patrick Howell and Timothy O’Donnell. I’ve never seen anything as funny in a ballet. Rachel Malehorn was a credible mother to these clowns, as sharply menacing as they were deliriously buffoonish. At the matinee performance, stepmother Susan Gartell and stepsisters Marc Petrocci and Ryan Martin, in his final role before retirement, played the characters as I remember them from 2009, outlandish, venal and silly in a subtler vein that may actually have served the show better.
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The role of Cinderella’s empathetic friend Jack was made for Petrocci, who graces every role he plays, but I also enjoyed Barry Molina’s work as Jack. Nadia Thompson, a kind of mom to the dancers in real life as the company’s ballet mistress, was the ideal protective spirit of Cinderella’s mother, the font of the story’s magic. Mark David Bloodgood is too young to play Cinderella’s hapless father but he did all he could. The Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra played Prokofiev’s rapturous score to the hilt. The whole company looked strong, as it has all season.
