Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty is a 'chocolate box ballet' not entirely dissimilar to the Nutcracker. The set and costumes are overwhelmingly sweet and fluffy, almost entirely in sugary pinks, lilacs, powder blues and whites. The dancing too is frilly, and showy, much more about technique and physical ability than drama or emotional performance.With a prologue and three acts, Beauty is a long production, and the glue that holds all acts together is the Lilac Fairy who engineers the plot and guides the audience through the story. In the prologue, she and her fairy troupe defend the infant Princess Aurora from the wicked Carabosse and his troupe of evil rats (!). In Act I she ensures that Aurora only sleeps after pricking the fated finger, in Act II she guides Prince Florimund to his sleeping princess, and in Act III she oversees the frivolous celebrations following their marriage. Unfortunately, Laura McCulloch's Lilac Fairy felt tired and heavy throughout. She was outshone by a spritely Akane Takada (Fairy of the Enchanted Garden) and the regal and refined Laura Morera (Fairy of the Golden Vine). In fairness the choreography for the Lilac Fairy's prologue solo is cumbersome in places, and particularly for a tall dancer like McCulloch, doesn't exactly lend itself to a graceful and spritely performance.
Lilac Fairy aside, things picked up dramatically in Act I with appearance of the wonderful Marianela Nunez. Flashing, exuberant, she woke the audience up with probably the best Rose Adagio I have seen yet. I find watching Nunez so easy - I never feel like I need to worry about her falling off balance, or missing a turn, which meant that although I was still on the edge of my seat during the series of nail-biting balances, I could actually really enjoy them for a change. She is perfectly suited to flashy technical roles such as this and was a real joy to watch.Sadly, Thiago Soares's standards were not quite up to the same dizzy heights. He danced reasonably enough but seemed oddly unsteady on his feet.
In Act II, the dream sequence engineered by the Lilac Fairy to introduce Florimund to the sleeping Aurora has strong echoes of Swan Lake, and is probably the better for it - it is the first proper departure from twee glitzy fairytale into the more ethereal world of ballet magic. However, this Act ends in a hurry, with no real sense that the Prince has battled with or done anything to deserve his Princess prize. He is merely guided through some drapes by the Lilac Fairy, finds the sleeping beauty, kisses her, pops the question and then the curtains fall. I can't help but feel that this section needs reworking - he needs some torturing, some challenges en route, rather than being sheepishly led past Carabosse by the Lilac Fairy.
Following on from Act II comes the ridiculous Act III; a series of dances completely unrelated to the story of Sleeping Beauty - indeed Aurora and Florimund have to come and stand at the back of the stage for a minute or so purely to remind you they still exist. I enjoy some of the dances in this Act, but I feel like they should be in a separate ballet, or else somehow merged with the Prologue or tagged onto Act II. Red-riding hood (pictured) and Puss-in-boots could easily be pruned, but Laura Morera and Kenta Kura were fantastic as Princess Florine and the Bluebird, and Sergei Polunin, Akane Takada and Yuhui Choe were also eye-catching as Florestan and his sisters (even if Choe lacked a bit of her usual energy), and it would be a shame to lose these dances.
Sleeping Beauty is at it's exuberant best when Princess Aurora is on stage; the rest is padding..and there's rather too much of it. Acts I and II are the definite highlights, but the prologue and Act III could do with some reworking. However, as a very traditional Petipa ballet that is unlikely to happen. It could be made less of a twee chocolate box ballet with some production changes - would it not feel more magical if the fairies were more earthy and ethereal (perhaps more like something out of a Midsummer Night's Dream?) rather than in pastel tutus? And Carabosse would feel far more malevolent without rodents for minions! Go, enjoy the spectacle, and the technical flashiness, but don't expect to be swept off your feet by the story.
