RECOMMENDED

Although nearly 50 years old and having toured throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, the State Ballet Theatre of Russia is making its area debut at long last with a full-scale production of Prokofiev’s “Cinderella” that will include fifty-six dancers and a full Russian symphony orchestra. The company’s goal is to present Russian dance classics performed in the authentic Russian style, which in this case means using the 1991 Kremlin Ballet version staged by onetime legendary Bolshoi Ballet premiere danseur and later its general director, Vladimir Vasiliev, who has reworked his version for the ensemble, complete with new costumes and scenery designed to emphasize the elegant yet darker corners of the work. The fairy godmother, for instance, is more of a witch in the Baba Yaga tradition and there are Russian fairies in the gnome tradition that might give children a good but needed scare. But it is the company’s longstanding tradition of using line and movement to convincingly convey characterizations and emotions that makes this production so special, a production that couldn’t be more different than the Anglo-androgynous Sir Frederick Ashton take on the work that the Joffrey presented here last fall. (Dennis Polkow)

$45-$65. 8 p.m., Feb. 9, 10, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie; (847)673-6300.