Playbill Notes: The Story behind the Story of Cinderella

From Texas Ballet Theater's 2010 production of Ben Stevenson's Cinderella. Photo by Ellen Appel, courtesy of Texas Ballet Theatre.

With opening night of Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella nearly upon us, we wanted to take a moment to share with you a bit of the fascinating history that surrounds the original Cinderella fairytale. Read this excerpt from pages 6-9 of Ballet SJ’s Cinderella Playbill, which can be downloaded and read in its entirety from the Ballet San Jose website.

One of the great ironies of life, and of art, is that out of pain is born beauty. A country is torn apart by war. A mother dies young. Artists hundreds of years apart give birth to story and music that will become the stuff that dreams are made of. Such is the path of this ballet. –Cinderella.

The Cinderella story is perhaps one of the best-known and best-liked fairy tales in Western culture. Like many folk tales, the origins of Cinderella can be traced back centuries, and individual elements of the story can be found in almost every corner of the world. It has been estimated there are at least 1,500 variations on the theme of Cinderella worldwide.

Opening Weekend Tips from Ballet San Jose’s Lee Kopp

Regular visitors to downtown San Jose know all the secrets–the best parking spots, the best coffee shops, and the best places to catch a show on a Friday night.

But there are few locals who know their way around downtown San Jose better than Lee Kopp, Ballet San Jose’s Director of Marketing and Publicity. Lee has been with our organization for over 12 years! To those of you planning to attend Program One this weekend, Lee offers some tips to save you time and enhance your experience. Whether you are a first timer or a season(ed) subscriber, get ready to lose yourself in the magic of ballet. It’s going to be a spectacular show!

The Program

We’ve posted at length about all three of the pieces that make up Program One of Ballet San Jose’s 2012 Season: Marius Petipa’s Paquita, Jerome Robbins’ Interplay, and David Lichine’s Graduation Ball. Read back through our most recent blog posts for fun information about the choreographers and stagers of the pieces.

Lee’s Tip: You can also look at the recent posts on the Ballet San Jose Facebook page. We’ve shared some great articles about Jerome Robbins and Interplay that are simply fascinating!

The Theater

All performances of Program One will be held at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, which is located at 255 Almaden Boulevard (at the corner of Park Avenue) in downtown San Jose. If you are coming to see Ballet San Jose for the first time, here are some helpful tips about attending our performances.

Lee’s Tip: Did you you know that you can arrive a little bit early to your show and pre-order your refreshments for intermission? It’s true! Instead of standing in long lines, pre-order your drinks and find them waiting for you on the table next to the concession stand at the beginning of each break.

The Best Parking

Parking for the theater can be found at the Adobe office building directly across the street from the theater at 345 Park Avenue. This Adobe parking facility has a live attendant on duty and costs only $5.00 (cash only). Additional parking can be found just a block away in the open air lot at the corner of Almaden Boulevard and Woz Way, directly across the street from the San Jose Convention Center side entrance. This open air ground lot costs $7.00 and accepts credit cards in machines located throughout the area. There is no live attendant.

Lee’s Tip: Adobe’s garage is a great parking deal with a little extra security. I recommend parking in this underground covered garage and entering/exiting the garage through the West Lobby. It’s a short walk from the theater, and you can’t beat the price!

Ballet San Jose, 2010-2011: A Season in Review(s)

With many thrilling opportunities in Ballet San Jose’s future — not the least of which is our new partnership with American Ballet Theatre, announced last Friday — this year seems to be winding down rather quietly. We are excited to see what 2012 will bring. However, we can’t bid 2011 adieu without first taking a moment to look back on the 2010-2011 Ballet San Jose season.

In lieu of putting together a true “End of the Year” list, we asked our Marketing Director and resident scrapbooker Lee Kopp to compile a few of his favorite snippets from local reviews of Giselle, Swan Lake and Carmen. The result was a pretty fantastic survey of one-liners.

So here it is. We present to you: Ballet San Jose’s 2010-2011 season in review(s).