Cinderella, Op. 87

The ballet unfolds in three acts, and even in a concert suite drawn from it, the story's landmarks stay clear. Act one is set in Cinderella's home, where her theme first appears, gentle and a little wistful, contrasted with the blustering music for her stepmother and stepsisters as they primp for the ball. A kindly beggar woman (secretly Cinderella's fairy godmother) arrives, and the music turns magical, sending Cinderella off to the ball in a rush of shimmering strings.

Act two is the ballroom. This is where Prokofiev's famous waltzes live, grand, sweeping tunes that keep circling back, along with a courtly gavotte for the stepsisters and a passage of pure enchantment when Cinderella and the Prince first dance together. The turning point everyone waits for is the midnight clock: twelve sharp, insistent chimes in the orchestra, growing more urgent, as Cinderella flees and loses her slipper.

Act three follows the Prince's search. There is a galloping, restless energy as he travels from house to house, and the mood softens completely once he finds Cinderella again. The ballet closes with a warm, spacious love theme, a full-circle return to the tenderness heard at the very start.

Prokofiev began composing Cinderella in 1940, working from the Charles Perrault fairy tale, but the outbreak of war interrupted the project and he set it aside to write other works, including his opera War and Peace. He returned to the ballet and completed it in 1944. The premiere was given at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1945, with choreography by Rostislav Zakharov. Prokofiev later drew three orchestral suites from the score for concert performance, which is often how audiences encounter the music outside the theater. The full ballet remains a repertory staple for dance companies, while its waltzes and character pieces are frequently programmed by orchestras on their own.