Sleeping Beauty performed by The Moscow Festival Ballet

Overview

The Moscow Festival Ballet bring lavish sets, beautiful costumes, and a corp de ballet with beauty and grace, as well as superbly gifted principal dancers and the music of Tchaikovsky.  Created in 1890 by choreographer Marius Petipa and legendary composer Tchaikovsky, the Sleeping Beauty ballet is a light-hearted fantasy of popular culture - a journey to an enchanted forest, where good triumphs over evil through a single kiss. 

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Program

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
Full-length Ballet in Three Acts
Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Choreography by Marius Petipa
Premiere: January 16, 1890 Marinski Theatre, St. Petersburg

ACT I
The Spell

Act I opens at Aurora's 16th birthday party. Brightly clad peasant girls dance a divertissement with flower garlands. Holding the arched garlands overhead, they dance in multiple circles, weaving in and out to a waltz tempo. All await the arrival of the Princess Aurora. The ballerina princess bursts on the scene, dancing a brief and vivacious solo in the manner of a carefree young girl. She is then ceremoniously introduced to the four princes who have come to seek her hand. The Rose Adagio, the famous pas d'action expressive of a young girl's blossoming into womanhood, is about to start. Aurora begins the adagio standing in attitude: one leg is raised and bent behind her, one curved arm is raised overhead. Some have read in this pose, which Aurora repeats often, a kind of gentle questioning or youthful uncertainty. One after the other, each of the suitors turns and displays her while she maintains the attitude pose. She releases the hand of the suitor supporting her and raising both of her arms overhead, balances momentarily, as if tentatively testing her abilities. She then takes the arm of the next prince and begins the sequence again. After a brief interlude in which the princess dances alone, she returns to accept a rose from each of the suitors (hence the title Rose Adagio). She pirouettes slowly and accepts each rose; one prince supports her while the next offers his flower. At the end of the Adagio, she returns to her attitude position, and supported in turn by each prince, she again releases her hand and balances for a little longer each time. Finally, as she frees her hand from the clasp of the fourth prince, she again releases her hand and balances for a little longer each time. Finally as she frees her hand from the clasp of the fourth prince, the curved attitude straightens into a sharp, arabesque extension. She retains her balance poised confidently on one toe, as if she has visibly come of age before the eyes of the adoring suitors. The Princess continues dancing a joyful solo until her attention is suddenly distracted by a strange woman dressed in black who offers her an unfamiliar object. Before anyone can stop her, Aurora seizes the dread spindle. The unwary Princess pricks her finger, grows weaker, and falls to the floor in a swoon. Just as those assembled lapse into despair, the Lilac Fairy steps forward. Waving her wand soothingly, she reminds them that the Princess will only sleep and she casts everyone into deep slumber along with her. The Lilac Fairy summons a forest of thorns, thickets, and enormous
shrubbery to grow around the sleeping court.

ACT II
Scene One: The Vision

Act II takes us to a neighboring kingdom 100 years later. Prince Charming and his lord and lady friends are out for a hunt. The cheerful retinue amuse themselves with dances and games, but the Prince is tired of everyday diversions and stays behind to wander about alone. Suddenly the Lilac Fairy floats in on a boat with gossamer sails. She offers to show the meloncholy Prince a vision of Aurora. The Prince is utterly enchanted by the sight of the Princess dancing lyrically and romantically amidst a tableau of fairies and nymphs, bathed in a bluish light. He pursues her but can only hold the Princess in his arms for a moment before she eludes him and disappears. She is after all only a spectral image conjured up by the Lilac Fairy. The Fairy offers to take the Prince across the lake, through the dense and tangled forest, to the castle where the real Princess lies asleep.

ACT II
Scene Two: The Awakening

The Prince approaches the canopied bed set on a high platform and, as the music heightens, he plants the awakening kiss. Aurora greets him. The King and Quenn appear from either side of the stage and welcome the awakened Aurora and her Prince with joy.

ACT III
The Wedding

The final act ushers us into a sumptuous hall, graced with statuesque columns and a circular gold staircase crowned by a blue sky. It is here that the Royal wedding of Prince Charming and Princess Aurora will take place. A full series of celebratory divertissements is performed by the inhabitants of fairyland. Puss 'n Boots, Bluebeard and his wife, Goldilocks and a Bear, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf all dance. A highlight is the pas de deux of the soaring Blue Bird and his Princess. First dancing together and then separately, they compete with each other spinning and fluttering in sparkling flight, sometimes jumping so high they seem virtually suspended in the air. The man's variation in particular, which features many beating jumps while he arches his body backwards and forward (brises voles) is one of the most famous and demanding in the international repertory. The bluebird's dance ends with the female lifted on the male's shoulder. The celebration then climaxes with the Grand Pas de Deux danced by the Prince and Princess. They are regal, formal and confident dancing together. Prince Charming supports his bride's pirouettes and displays her long extensions and secure balances. The Prince jumps and spins during his solo and the Princess spins on pointe with even surer mastery than she showed in the Rose Adagio. Finally, Aurora
whirls into the Prince's arms and dives toward the floor; the Prince catches her around the waist and supports her in the famous inverted pose known as the fish dive. All join the bride and groom for a spirited mazurka and the Lilac Fairy, standing in their midst, bestows her blessing on the happy couple.

The Sleeping Beauty was the first of Petipa's classics to be seen in Western Europe. Under the title The Sleeping Princess, it was presented by Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) in London in 1921. In 1939, it was remounted in Great Britain and has been considered the foundation of the Classical ballet repertory in that country ever since. It has now been adopted worldwide, and performance of the leading role remains a kind of initiation rite for aspiring ballerinas.
The Sleeping Beauty is a supreme demonstration of the challenge of Petipa's style - steel point work, sharply accented spinning turns, soaring leaps, high extensions, brilliant battery (beats in the air), daring lifts and, in addition, it gives a fairy tale plot lavish stage treatment. However, its production actually checked a growing tendency toward shapeless extravaganza in 19th century ballet, adhering closely to the principle of choreographic symphonism: meaning that, like the composition of a symphony, it had a certain formal structure. The Sleeping Beauty was choreographed in strict association with Tchaikovsky's music. There are themes developed and resumed throughout the ballet, and each act is a unity unto itself. Tchaikovsky willingly took instruction from Petipa as to the length tempo and character of each musical sequence ( as he would also do in The Nutcracker). The themes - a young girl's coming of age and the triumph of good over evil are developed dramatically and musically during the course of the ballet. Each of the three acts includes an adagio for Princess Aurora, the first celebrating her girlhood, the second her falling in love, and the third her marriage. In these pas d'actions, Petipa makes fuller use than previous choreographers of the dramatic potential of the Classical ballet, as for example, when Aurora's curved (questioning) attitudes become sharp (exclamatory) arabesques and her balances grow steadily surer.

About the Artists

The Moscow Festival Ballet was founded in 1989 when legendary principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet Sergei Radchenko sought to realize his vision of a company which would bring together the highest classical elements of the great Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet companies in an independent new company within the framework of Russian classic ballet.

Leading dancers from across the Russias have forged under Radchenko's direction an exciting new company staging new productions of timeless classics such as Giselle, Don Quixote, Paquita and Carmen.

Since its inception, the Moscow Festival Ballet has... more completed two tours of Europe, with extraordinary receptions in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. Two tours of the United Kingdom, including capacity audiences at London's famed Coliseum, have resulted in re-engagements during the 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons.

The company has also performed with great success in Turkey at the Istanbul Festival and in Greece at the Athens Festival, and recently completed a two-month tour of Japan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Under the direction of Sergei Radchenko, the Moscow Festival Ballet continues to expand its repertoire. In addition to commissioning new works from within Russia and abroad, the company specializes in Twentieth Century full-length ballets such as Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, Legend of Love, Stone Flower and The Golden Age. Mr. Radchenko has researched the original choreography and stage productions of several of Marius Petipa's classic ballets, including new productions in the year 2000 of Don Quixote and Paquita, and a recreation of Jules Perrot's and Jean Coralli's Giselle.

The Moscow Festival Ballet has toured extensively throughout the United States, beginning with a Coast-to-Coast tour in the Winter/Spring of 1997 and returning in 2001, 2004 and 2006. During the 2009-2010 season, the company returns to America for a 17-week tour.

SERGEI RADCHENKO
Artistic Director

Born in 1944, Sergei Radchenko graduated from the Moscow School of Dance in 1964 and then joined the Bolshoi Ballet, where he worked for 25 years. He danced the entire repertoire at the Bolshoi, but enjoyed a special reputation for Spanish dance, particularly the role of the bullfighter in the Bizet-Shchedrin Carmen Suite. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Moscow Festival Ballet and has achieved a remarkable feat in the establishment and development of this young but great Russian ballet company. Mr. Radchenko presents a large number of master-classes, inviting leading teachers from the Bolshoi and Maryinsky theatres to ensure the continuation of the rich traditions of the Russian classical school.