SUGAR AND CINDERS.

SUGAR AND CINDERS COLORADO BALLET AUDITORIUM THEATRE DENVER, COLORADO OCTOBER 14, NOVEMBER 26, 2000

The problem is the same for classic ballet all over the country. Full-evening ballets sell, but full-evening ballets are a notoriously scarce commodity. After you have done your three Tchaikovsky standards, then Giselle, Coppelia and perhaps La Sylphide, where do you go from there? Well, probably to the two Prokofiev standards, Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. But whose version? There are more or less (some would say less rather than more) well-received versions of the classic Big Six, but with the Prokofievs, the director or the individual is on his or her own. Sure you can buy, say, the Frederick Ashton Cinderella or the John Cranko Romeo, but they do not come cheap. Maybe it would be more practical to run up your own version. And that, for better or worse, usually worse, is what is customarily done.

Seeing for the first time Martin Fredmann's Cinderella for his Colorado Ballet, I found myself more impressed by the dancing, the charming sets and costumes by British designer Peter Farmer (originally acquired from a Royal Ballet production, I suspect), and the ingenuity of the concept--no Jester, how about that for an innovation!--rather than the choreography. This seemed super-competent, but basically run-of-the-mill with some bright undercurrents, such as the key pas de deux. Of course, the performance, led by a delicate Maria Mosina and a stalwart Meelis Pakri, maintained the high level expected of this Denver company.

Yet do-it-yourself versions can indeed unexpectedly pay off. Little more than a month later than this Cinderella, which had been revived for a special gala to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the company's founding by Lillian Covillo and Freidann Parker, I found myself once again in Denver, this time to attend the Denver Center Theater Company's day-long presentation of John Barton's epic play Tantalus, directed by Peter Hall. Being in town, I warily went along to the Colorado Ballet's production of The Nutcracker, a ballet I normally prefer only slightly to ptomaine poisoning. But surprise, surprise, I was totally enchanted.

The ballet looked delicious, with wonderful scenery and costumes by another Brit, Desmond Heeley (this was also a brilliantly selected hand-me-down from Ronald Hynd's old production for the English National Ballet), and Fredmann, here obviously given the chance to work his choreography year after year (for The Nutcracker is the one hardy perennial in the American repertoire), has come up with inventive choreography of great charm--particularly in the imaginative divertissements of the last act, but also in the skillfully sketched, almost Dickensian crowd scenes of the first-act party.

Fredmann uses adults for Clara and her Nutcracker Prince (I caught a very lively Chandra Gercke partnered by Sasha Kozadeyev), while the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier were magisterially handled by Mosina again, partnered this time by an impressive newcomer from the Kirov Ballet, Nikita Shcheglov. But the whole performance and production seemed like a child's dream of Christmas. I almost expected to hear sleigh-bells as I left.