Composer: April 27, 1891, Sontsovka, Bakhmutsk region, Yekaterinoslav district, Ukraine; died March 5, 1953, Moscow

Work composed: Prokofiev began writing Cinderella in 1941, and completed it in 1944, on a commission for the Kirov Ballet (the ballet was eventually premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet, however, after the Kirov’s prima ballerina, for whom the work was commissioned, left the Kirov for the Bolshoi, taking Cinderella with her). In 1946, Prokofiev arranged three different orchestral suites from the ballet. 

World premiere: The full ballet Cinderella premiered on November 21, 1945 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, led by Yuri Fayer, with choreography by Rostislav Zakharov. 

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, castanets, tambourine, snare drum, tam-tam, bass drum, cymbals, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano, harp, and strings

Estimated duration: 45 minutes

Americans know the story of Cinderella primarily from its saccharine Disneyfied version: beautiful, humble girl triumphs over wicked family and difficult circumstances to win a prince’s love. But the original versions of the Cinderella tale suggest the possibility of more nuanced interpretations not found in a Disney movie. 

As Sergei Prokofiev’s countryman Dmitri Shostakovich had already learned, any composer working within the Soviet system had to be willing to write music agreeable to the powerful apparatchiks who controlled Soviet culture. Prokofiev, too, upon his return to the USSR in 1936, quickly adopted the strict aesthetic parameters of “acceptable” compositions: nothing too discordant or incomprehensible, and no political narratives that could be interpreted as criticism of the Soviet system. Given these circumstances, Prokofiev prudently began writing film scores, like his famous accompaniment to Sergei Eisenstein’s epic film Alexander Nevsky, about the great 13th-century Russian hero of Novgorod. 

In 1940, the Kirov Ballet premiered Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Both music and choreography were an instant success, and the Kirov promptly commissioned another ballet from Prokofiev, suggesting the story of Cinderella as a vehicle for the Kirov’s prima ballerina, Galina Ulanova. Prokofiev agreed with enthusiasm; one likely factor in his decision, other than the practical desire to follow up one successful ballet with another, is the fact that Cinderella appears on the surface to be the most innocuous and inoffensive of tales.

But Prokofiev, possessed of a sardonic wit and an affinity for irony that features prominently in his pre-Soviet music, managed to subvert the tender ingenuousness of the Cinderella tale into something more humorous, more outrageous, and often tinged with an underlying melancholy not present in conventional treatments of the story. 

The wistful, yearning introduction, which captures Cinderella’s plight, veers between gloom and the hope – which for all she knows may never be fulfilled – of deliverance. Prokofiev caricatures the wicked stepsisters in their quarrel over a shawl, demonstrating their nasty self-centeredness with shrill comments in the winds, while their relentless complaining is heard in the strings and percussion. 

All is not irony, however. “The main thing I wanted to convey in the music of Cinderella,” wrote Prokofiev, “was the poetic love of Cinderella and the Prince – the inception and flowering of the emotion, the obstacles in its way, the realization of a dream.” In all the movements featuring Cinderella, Prokofiev’s graceful lyricism dominates. Prokofiev also considered the practical aspects of writing effective ballet music. “Besides the dramatic structure,” Prokofiev explained, “it was very important to me that the ballet Cinderella should be most danceable, that the dances should flow from the design of the plot, be varied, and that the artists in the ballet should have sufficient measure of opportunity to dance and display their art.” To that end, Prokofiev included a number of courtly dances: several waltzes, a pavane, a gavotte, and a passionate pas-de-deux. Cinderella’s waltz is abruptly interrupted by the clock chiming midnight. This scene displays Prokofiev’s mastery of orchestral color: the brasses, shrilling piccolo, tremolo strings and relentless ticking woodblocks convey the drama of Cinderella’s predicament and her fear most effectively. After the Prince finds Cinderella and fits the missing glass slipper to her foot, the two lovers drift away on the exquisitely lush melody of the Amoroso, a perfect “happily ever after” ending.

© Elizabeth Schwartz