CINDERELLA, CINDERELLA!
ASCHENPUTTEL (GERMAN, 19TH CENTURY)In the gruesome Brothers Grimm version, the stepsisters chop off parts of their
feet to try to fit into Cinderella’s slipper, and their eyes are pecked out by birds at
the end.
LITTLE SADDLESLUT (GREEK)This story has Little Saddleslut’s sisters kill their mother and feast on her flesh. She
meets her prince at church (a good place to go when you’ve got sisters like hers).
CENERENTOLA (ITALIAN, 1649)The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by
Giambattista Basile. It features a wicked stepmother and six wicked stepsisters!
KATIE WOODENCLOAK (NORWEGIAN)Katie’s “fairy godmother” is a bull who helps her flee her wicked stepmother, and
then furnishes her with fancy clothing for her rendezvous with the prince.
ASHEY PELT (IRISH)A magical black ewe tells Ashey Pelt to strike a stone three times to get her wish.
She wishes to go to a ball, leaves behind a silk slipper, and the prince tracks her down.
CENDRILLON (FRENCH, 1697)Charles Perrault’s version inspired the Cinderella we know today. He gave us the
fairy godmother, the pumpkin, and the glass slippers (though some folklorists say
the slippers were actually made of squirrel fur).
RASHIN-COATIE (SCOTTISH)A magic cow helps Rashin-Coatie put together a nice outfit for her
star-crossed meeting with the prince.
YE XIAN (CHINESE, CIRCA 9TH CENTURY)In perhaps the earliest incarnation of the Cinderella story, a guardian spirit in
the form of a fish grants Ye Xian one wish, which she uses to create a beautiful
gown and golden slippers to wear to the New Year Festival.
A poor girl. A prince. A pumpkin. Cinderella is possibly
the most famous fairy tale of all time—the classic
rags-to-riches story in which virtue is rewarded and
evil is punished.
When we imagine Cinderella, we usually think of
Disney’s 1950 animated feature, which was inspired
(as many Cinderella stories are) by French writer
Charles Perrault’s “Cinderella; or, The Little Glass
Slipper” from 1697. But scholars say there are as many
as 1,500 variations of the Cinderella story around the
world. Here are just a few. . . .
CINDERELLA ON STAGE
Cinderella began appearing on stage notably about a century
after Perrault’s famous fairy tale was published—and it took her
another two centuries to make it to Broadway. During that time,
the character of Cinderella inspired numerous operas, ballets,
and theatrical productions.
Sir Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, for Sadler’s
Wells Ballet in London (1948), was the first
production in the West to use Prokofiev’s
score. Still performed widely, this comedic
ballet features a gender swap where male
dancers portrayed the stepsisters.
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon teamed
up with puppeteer Basil Twist to create a magical
Cinderella (2012) for the Dutch National Ballet and
the San Francisco Ballet.
The opera canon features two oft-performed
versions of Cinderella: Gioachino Rossini’s
La Cenerentola features the stepfather as
the villain and strips away the fairies and the
magic, while Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon
hews more closely to Perrault’s fairy tale.
In Rudolf Nureyev’s version, created for the
Paris Opera Ballet (1986), Cinderella dreams
of Hollywood stardom and escape from her
alcoholic father and tyrannical stepmother.
Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s famous,
jubilant ballet score was premiered at the
Bolshoi Theatre (1945) with choreography by
Rostislav Zakharov and starring Galina Ulanova.
THEATERThroughout the 1800s, Cinderella was often
performed as a pantomime, a style featuring
songs, dancing, slapstick comedy, and
cross-dressing actors.
The 1920s brought a musical called Mr.Cinders,
a gender-flipped production in which the
Prince Charming character is a powerful
modern woman.
An off-Broadway musical called Cindy had a
couple of brief runs in the mid-1960s. Two
decades later, Cinderella bounded onto
Broadway in Stephen Sondheim and James
Lapine’s Into the Woods (1988).
OPERAThe opera canon features two oft-performed versions of Cinderella: Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola features the stepfather as the
villain and strips away the fairies and the magic, while Jules Massenet’s
Cendrillon hews more closely to Perrault’s fairy tale.
BALLETIn Marius Petipa’s famous Cinderella at
the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre (1893),
choreographed by Enricho Cechetti and
Lev Ivanov, Italian ballerina Pierina Legnani
created a sensation by performing a record
32 fouettés (turns) en pointe.
Matthew Bourne reimagined Cinderella as
a World War II romance set in London during
the Blitz (1997).