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).