Cinderella

An elaborately detailed Venetian venue serves as backdrop for this rarefied retelling of the traditional fairy tale. Ella's mother is still alive as the story opens, the wife of a wealthy sea merchant who rarely sees his family. When, from afar, Ella falls in love with lonely-looking Duke Fidelio, she confides in her mother, wondering sadly ``if his father is as busy as mine.'' Her mother dies and Ella is sent off to ``boarding school,'' from whence she is summoned to become housekeeper for her father's new bride and her daughters. Despite such plot enhancements, the distinguishing element here is Delamare's ( The Christmas Secret ) arresting artwork. His paintings feature sharply defined images carefully juxtaposed so as to resemble collage. Ornately dressed and elegantly coiffed figures traipse about in palatial splendor, suffused in an amber wash. Ella's Julia Roberts-like sultriness contrasts starkly, perhaps awkwardly, with Delamare's oddly planed courtiers. Slightly skewed proportions, ominous perspectives and hallucinatory settings (Ella rides a fish-shaped gondola with a pumpkin-shaped cabin) impart a vaguely menacing quality to the work. Best suited to diehard Cinderella devotees and fans of Delamare's highly stylized art. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)