Sleeping Beauty in Good Shape Even After 100 Years

The Sleeping Beauty

The Boston Ballet

at the Wang Center

through November 7

At the opening of the Boston Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty, the audience was anything but sleepy. With regal costumes and beautiful scenery, classic choreography and spirited execution of movement, The Sleeping Beauty captured the unique union of music and magic necessary for the translation of fairy tale into ballet. Based on Charles Perrault's "La Belle au Bois Dormant" from Mother Goose, The Sleeping Beauty tells the story of Princess Aurora, cursed by the evil Carabosse to sleep one hundred years until kissed by a handsome prince. The strength of the ballet lies in the noble and soaring melodies of the music, composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. With choreography by Marius Petipa, The Sleeping Beauty received its first performance at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in January of 1890, attaining instant success. Staged by Anna-Marie Holmes, the Boston Ballet's choreography tries to maintain the flavor and quality of Petipa's original movement by staying as close as possible to his original choreography, rendering the ballet an embodiment of the grand Russian style softened by a refined romanticism.

Performed in three acts, The Sleeping Beauty opens with a court scene reminiscent of the history of ballet itself. In the palace of King Florestan XIV, fairy upon fairy dance blessings on the new born Princes Aurora. With a stage full of court guests, each fairy dancer bows to the audience as if the audience was a part of the court itself. The history of ballet centers around court culture but the bows in this opening act feel somewhat jarring to the audience--its self-awareness adds a layer of artificiality to the ballet, for the audience witnesses the performance within the performance. This dynamic would not be so disturbing if it ended with the first act, but it returns in the third act at the wedding celebration. Despite the unnecessary bowing, act one offers us the pleasures of the compellingly evil fairy Carabosse (Devon Carney), and the famed Rose Adagio. One of the most devilishly difficult moments for a ballerina due to its extended balances on point and sweeping plie arabesques, it is masterfully danced by Trinidad Sevillano, as the adolescent Princess Aurora. David Walker's superb costume and set design also majestically frame this scene. Unfortunately, this act also includes Carla Stalling's failure as the Queen to both act and dance, and the repetition of odd, graceless flittery arm choreography by the court fairies. By the end of act one, the youthful and energetic sixteen year old Aurora has pricked her finger on Casabosse's poisoned spindle in a beautiful pastoral garden scene while dancing with four foreign princes. The Lilac Fairy saves her by putting a spell on the castle and everyone within its walls falls into a deep sleep.

At the center of the ballet, the second act witnesses the highest levels of dance and the resolution of the fairy tale story. Prince Desire, danced superbly by Patrick Armand, hunts near the enchanted castle a hundred years after the casting of the spell. The rich costumes and haughty dance render this scene a true early Ralph Lauren moment. The Prince, dressed conspicuously in wedding white throughout the ballet, wanders off pensively self-absorbed. The Lilac Fairy greets him and shows him an apparition of the sleeping princess, and lo and behold, he falls in love. Heightening tension and passion between the Prince and his vision, the Lilac Fairy and the Princess' apparition, in a female-female pairing unusual for classical ballet, dance a beautiful pas de deux. Prince Desire tries to reach the apparition but the Lilac Fairy does not let him, creating a chase scene. Had this tension continued, the final union of Aurora with Desire would have been climactic and dramatic, but rather, the Prince dances with the apparition after a brief build up in unrealistic and choreographically uninspired short snips. Finally, the Lilac Fairy takes the Prince to the castle on a corny and overdone stage boat--a true low point in the ballet. The Prince quickly defeats Casabosse, kisses the Princess, and the castle revives.

The third act, probably unnecessary in this two hour and forty minute production with two intermissions, celebrates Princess Aurora and Prince Desire's wedding festivities. Like Act One, Act Three takes place in the performance space at the palace with various fairies and guests dancing for the court. These guests include Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and Puss `n' Boots and the White Cat from other fairy tales in a decision that seems out of context, employed for the sole purpose of filling out Tchaikovsky's score. A highlight of the final act is the beautiful pas de deux between a Blue Bird, danced by Paul Thrussel, and his enchanted princess (Adriana Suarez). In this pas de deux, the lifts and leaps break boundaries in choreography noticeably lacking in the rest of the performance. The following pas de deux between the Prince and Princess, while technically excellent and performed with subtlety and grace, lacks the strength and sense of energetic excess captured by the Blue Birds.

A night at the Boston Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty will not disappoint any lover of dance. And yet, the rarity of solos and duets on the stage illustrate the ballet's social nature and its lack of drama and psychological development. Even the much anticipated kiss occurs in Aurora's bed chamber with her parents, the King and Queen, by her side! Still, The Sleeping Beauty combines rare moments of stunning dancing with magical stagecraft for an enjoyable evening of theater and dance.