“Thaw under the reign of Prince Christopher!” Reads Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s historically correct relocation II “Cinderella” on the telescreens. So Christmas theater not with a physical but with a digital audience. The result is a correct piece for the whole blended family. However, they didn’t want a glamorous fairy tale like on Broadway at the State Operetta. Director Geertje Boeden and dramaturge Judith Wiemers left it with the cheerful rendering of the well-tempered updated text with site-specific colors and liveries. The good fairy Marie (Silke Fröde) wears wide bell-bottoms in a ennobled ethnic look. She propagates (Cinder-) Ella’s ball attendance as a laudable role model for every woman who wants to get out of the kitchen and into earthly paradise. With the musical message number 1, of course, that those who really want to have to care about all stones on the determined path from dishwasher to millionaire. In Dresden, the play’s central power struggle takes place indirectly between the fairy godmother and the bad stepmother (Ingeborg Schöpf), because their interpreters are noticeably striving for the second level hidden beneath the sometimes smooth dialogues.
Pumpkin carriage, animal helpers, fine robes and tattered looks work well on the stage, which is often flooded in a deep sky blue (Philip Rubner). With Sarah Antonia Rung’s costumes, the nobility sticks to the lower layers in a tower-like construction with effective circular stairs like heavy icing on buttery biscuit. There are only hints because Winfried Schneider does not separate demonstrators and diplomats in his choreography, the oppressed do not clench their fists and have lax gestures like the upper class.
The distance between the actors on the big stage in Werk Mitte gives scenes that are fantastic or luxurious, something floating. This eases the emphasis of the underdogs, who were put in a leisurely trot by the opposition Jean-Michel (Timo Schabel), who line up at the decisive demo like the lunch break guaranteed by the collective agreement. The direction lets happen what the text offers. So Gero Wendorff can hardly justify why Prince Charming Christopher did not make it past chapter one at the elite school in political science and finds only moderate pleasure in killing dragons. Cinderella even keeps a sunny disposition when her stepmother roars hysterically that she only married the blessed papa for the money. The work to remove the glitter in Dresden could have used an investment in dramatic sharpening.
But everyone in the production team agreed to deliberately ignore Bene’s textual return offers. Much remains half-hearted, such as the Machiavellian overprotectionism of Prime Minister Sebastian (Bryan Rothfuss) for the prince, who has been left in a womanless environment for a long time, the stepmother’s ambitions to climb up and above all a title figure with inexhaustible resources for cheerfulness. Laila Salome Fischer has voice, expression and presence. In the end, most eyes will still stay dry. The happy ending comes inevitably and stinglessly because you have already forgotten the emotional bond of the main couple after the break. Seen up close, the fine gradations in the contact between Cinderella and the bad sisters are missing, one of whom turns from a crow to a dove out of love (Lisa Müller).
The orchestra of the State Operetta shows that Richard Rodgers’ music develops charms even without special hits. When the camera is aimed at the conductor Christian Garbosnik, he primarily looks at the musicians and rarely at the stage. As with the title character, there is a belief in one’s own qualities. But there is still something missing about the pulsating motor skills of which so much is chatting in this “Cinderella” adaptation. Since the first publication of Charles Perrault’s “Cinderella” (1697), hardly anything has apparently changed: In his second moral on the fairytale wedding, Perrault declared that social advancement is impossible without nepotism.
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