Limelight · Ballet

Zoluška (1945)

Choreography by Rostislav Zakharov

This is Prokofiev's full-length Cinderella (Op. 87), composed 1940–1944 to a scenario by Nikolai Volkov, and premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre on 21 November 1945 with choreography by Rostislav Zakharov and Galina Ulanova as Cinderella, conducted by Yuri Fayer. Our record holds only the bare facts (title, composer, choreographer, 1945); the article supplies the scenario, the full musical-numbers plan across three acts, and the instrumentation of a large late-Romantic orchestra with celesta, xylophone and extensive percussion — the score that later choreographers (Ashton in 1948, Nureyev subsequently) reset with entirely different choreography of their own.

What it contains

Classical Ballet · Act IIClassical Ballet · Act I
  • Classical Ballet — Duet of the Prince and Cinderella · Act II, No. 36 'Duet of the Prince and Cinderella' — A romantic pas de deux for the two principals in the palace garden, built around partnered dancing that carries the ballet's central love story rather than mime. Source: "The Prince takes Cinderella out to the royal gardens for an evening walk, where they dance and proclaim the love blossoming between them."
  • Classical Ballet — Cinderella Dreams of the Ball · Act I, No. 9 'Cinderella Dreams of the Ball' — A solo variation for Cinderella alone on stage, using a broom as a partner substitute while she imagines dancing with the Prince — a mimed-solo device typical of narrative classical ballet variations. Source: "she cheers herself up by dancing with her broom, imagining the Prince himself has asked her for a dance"

What is danced

The ballet is built as a three-act narrative with dozens of discrete numbers rather than a plotless suite: named dances include a Shawl Dance and Gavotte in Act I, a Passepied, Bourrée, two named stepsister Variations ('Skinny's' and 'Dumpy's'), a Mazurka, Grand Waltz and Waltz-Coda in the ballroom Act II, and three successive 'Galops of the Prince' plus an 'Orientalia' number as he searches the world in Act III. The article names these numbers but does not describe their steps, so while the historic dance forms they invoke (gavotte, passepied, bourrée, mazurka, galop) are all present as titles in the score, there is not enough descriptive text here to confidently assign each to a specific movement vocabulary — see uncertainties.

What the synopsis does support directly: Act I gives Cinderella a solo danced/mimed sequence alone on stage ('she cheers herself up by dancing with her broom, imagining the Prince himself has asked her for a dance'), the kind of pantomime-object device common in narrative ballet variations. Act II carries the ballet's comic set pieces — the stepsisters' unsuccessful bids to impress the court through their own dancing — and its dramatic core, a garden pas de deux for the two principals ('they dance and proclaim the love blossoming between them'). The stepmother and stepsisters are explicitly comic, mimed, often travesti roles ('more mad than bad in this treatment'), a device that shapes how the character material is built and cast, distinct from the lyrical vocabulary given to Cinderella and the Prince.

Context

Prokofiev wrote Cinderella in the Soviet Union during the war years, breaking off mid-composition to write the opera War and Peace; its 1945 Bolshoi premiere, with Ulanova in the title role, arrived at a moment when Soviet ballet was consolidating the large-scale dramatic 'drambalet' narrative style that Zakharov himself had helped define. The choice to make the stepmother and stepsisters comic rather than cruel, and to build them as showcase mimed/character roles, set a template that other choreographers handling the same score (notably Ashton three years later) would also adopt.

Staging history

The article documents only the original 1945 Bolshoi staging in detail (Zakharov's choreography, Ulanova, conductor Yuri Fayer). It notes, without describing, that the same Prokofiev score was independently choreographed by Frederick Ashton in 1948 (listed as a separate production/work) and later by Rudolf Nureyev, and references an earlier Cinderella ballet by Fitinhof-Schell to a different score entirely — none of these subsequent stagings are described in the source text beyond the cross-reference.

How to watch it

Track how the production splits vocabulary by character: lyrical, unbroken dancing for Cinderella and the Prince (especially the Act II garden duet) against broad, mimed, often travesti comedy for the stepmother and stepsisters. Watch the Act III search sequence, built as three successive 'Galops of the Prince' interspersed with an 'Orientalia' episode, for how the choreography compresses a world tour into a handful of contrasting dance numbers before the recognition scene.

Structure

  1. Act I
    Cinderella is kept as a servant by her stepmother and stepsisters; after they leave for the ball her fairy godmother transforms her rags, a pumpkin and small creatures into a gown, carriage and retinue, warning her to leave before midnight.
  2. Act I · Cinderella Dreams of the Ball
    Alone at home, Cinderella dances with her broom, imagining the Prince has asked her for a dance.
  3. Act II
    At the Spring Ball the stepsisters dance unsuccessfully for the court's favour while Cinderella arrives transformed, dances with the Prince all evening, and flees at the stroke of midnight, losing a glass slipper.
  4. Act II · Skinny's Variation / Dumpy's Variation
    The two stepsisters each attempt to win favour with the royal court by showing off their dancing skills, with poor results.
  5. Act II · Duet of the Prince and Cinderella
    In the royal garden the Prince and Cinderella dance together and declare their love before returning to the ballroom.
  6. Act III · Scene 1 · The search for Cinderella
    The Prince questions every shoemaker in the kingdom and travels across the world trying the glass slipper on princesses, danced across three successive Galops and an Orientalia episode.
  7. Act III · Scene 2 · The Prince with Cinderella
    Cinderella wakes believing the ball was a dream, is recognized by the Prince when the second glass slipper falls from the stepmother's pocket, and is married after being reunited via the fairy godmother.

Structure read from an encyclopaedia article, not from a libretto or score we hold. Confirm against a programme before treating the numbering as authoritative.

Credits

  • composer: Sergei Prokofiev

Questions

Who created the original choreography and who danced the premiere?
Rostislav Zakharov choreographed the 1945 Bolshoi Theatre premiere, conducted by Yuri Fayer, with Galina Ulanova in the title role.
Is this the same production as Ashton's Cinderella?
No. The article treats Ashton's 1948 Cinderella as a separate production of the same Prokofiev score, with its own choreography; Nureyev also later made his own version.
Why are the stepsisters funny rather than menacing in this version?
The article describes them as comic double roles, 'more mad than bad,' often danced in travesti (by men), which shifts their material toward broad mimed comedy rather than villainy.
Can the music be heard separately from the ballet?
Yes — Prokofiev issued three piano suites (Op. 95, 97, 102) before the premiere and later authorized three orchestral suites (Op. 107–109) plus a Waltz Suite (Op. 110) drawn from the ballet.
This entry was written from “Cinderella (Prokofiev)” on English Wikipedia (revision 1359699341), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. The link points at the exact revision this text was written from, so it shows the words we actually used rather than whatever the article says today. Credits and premiere data come from Wikidata (CC0), cited per field.
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