BECOMING CINDERELLA

The curtain at the Esplanade Theatre will rise on Singapore Ballet's brand-new production of Cinderella, the company's first new adaptation of a full-length classical ballet since 2014. Tatler goes behind the scenes with artistic director Janek Schergen and principal dancers Chihiro Uchida and Kenya Nakamura to find out what makes this production so special

- Ethan Kan

With the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella sheds her skin as a humble servant dusted with cinder and transforms into a glamorous princess who becomes the star of the ball. Yes, she must flee from her prince at the stroke of midnight, but for a night, she is transcendent. As the Singapore Ballet prepares to raise the curtain on its brand‑new production of Cinderella, staged at the Esplanade Theatre from December 14 to 17, a similar transformation for the company awaits.

There exists many renowned versions of Cinderella, including productions by heavyweights such as Frederick Ashton, Ben Stevenson and Graham Lustig, who in fact staged a production of the ballet classic for the company back in 1996. But rather than revive the old version of Cinderella already in its repertoire, Janek Schergen, the artistic director of Singapore Ballet, chose to do a new production instead. “These dancers are significantly different from the dancers we had then. So we need to do something new that is made specifically to reflect how [our] dancers have grown and developed over the past 20‑plus years,” he says.