In This Edition: -Podcast of A Review of Paris Opera’s Sleeping Beauty -The Text of the Review in English -Where to Watch 6 Different Versions of Sleeping Beauty -The Review in French/La critique en français Revolution and Reverie: Paris Opera Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty at the Bastille THE CONTEXT Seeing the Paris Opera Ballet in The Sleeping Beauty, or La Belle au Bois Dormant, is to look down history’s kaleidoscopic tunnel. A deluge of rotating tutus, rising monarchies, falling empires, exiled artists, fairy tales, and waves of Russian, French, and Soviet history are embedded in the costumes of fairies, pages, and princesses. At the same time, it’s a conversation in contradictions. This most opulent and classical of ballets, based on a fairy tale written in 1697 by Charles Perrault as an homage to the French monarchy, is performed not in the traditional 150-year-old Palais Garnier theater, but in the modern, cold, cool, and stark Bastille—a theater inaugurated in commemoration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Here we have a ballet revering the ideals of an antiquated state, in a theater built to commend and commemorate the revolution. The story was originally adopted by the imperial Russian court during a surge in nationalism following the 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the last reform-minded czar. The state was bracing against revolution, holding tighter to myths of divine monarchy (will we ever learn?). Layered onto that is the later history of revolution—and Rudolf Nureyev’s defection and subsequent exile. The original choreography is by the prolific Marius Petipa, and while the overall structure and iconic scenes remain—like the Rose Adagio and the fairy variations in the prologue—the version POB performs is by Nureyev, who served as Artistic Director from 1983 to 1989. During his tenure, he staged his own versions of many classics, commissioned major contemporary works like William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (1987), and famously promoted Sylvie Guillem to Étoile at the age of 19 in 1984, unorthodoxly leapfrogging her over several ranks. Nureyev was a beloved star in the Soviet Union. He defected in June 1961 while on tour in Paris, landing in a life of both freedom and near permanent estrangement. His dramatic escape humiliated the Soviet state, a stain on their propaganda project—if Soviet society was so superior, why were its greatest artists fleeing? His family was harassed and his father’s military career was reportedly destroyed. While countless serfs had suffered under the czars, many—including Nureyev—also suffered under the Soviet regime and carried with them a complex nostalgia for the era that preceded it. That longing is felt in Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty—a staging that honors the fairy tale’s monarchical origins, perhaps also mourning a vanished imperial Russia. Before we get into the review a huge thank you to this episode’s sponsor Marquee TV, my absolute number 1 favorite streaming platform. They have hundreds of classical and contemporary dance titles, including 6 different versions of the sleeping beauty! Among them Royal Ballet, Australian Ballet, David Hallberg at the Bolshoi and Matthew Bourne’s. Subscribe HERE The REVIEW The Prelude: A Cursed Blessing The prelude is the most famous part of Sleeping Beauty—the moment when fairies gather to bestow gifts upon the newborn Princess Aurora: grace, beauty, courage, song—all the things a princess needs to function as an aspirational member of society. It’s also where the point of tension is introduced and Carabosse, the malevolent fairy left off the invitation list, crashes the celebration and curses Aurora to die at sixteen, just as she would be preparing to enter society. Carabosse is often played with more than a touch of theatrical humor—a serious threat, certainly, but sometimes camp or caricature, depending on the company and the dancer. At Paris Opera Ballet, her menace is quieter, more elegant. Fanny Gorse plays her as an understated danger, like a well-heeled politician whose destructive power lies beneath a façade of stately refinement. There’s some irony, as there always is in this role, but Gorse gives us a Carabosse who could have been just like the other fairies—had life unfolded differently. Instead, her powers are putrefied in malice. Technical Purity, Parisian Control Technically speaking, Sleeping Beauty is considered the purest of the classical ballets. The choreography is crystalline—there’s nowhere to hide. Unlike Swan Lake, where dramatic flair can mask a slip in form (or a slip in form can enhance the dramatic), Beauty demands absolute clarity, making it the perfect showcase for a ballet company’s stylistic identity and technical level. Paris Opera Ballet’s contained elegance can sometimes mute the dancers’ full virtuosity. In Beauty, this quality becomes an asset. But occasionally, dancers burst through their refinement. In this performance, two stood out. Laudeline Schor—a Quadrille, the company’s lowest rank—shone in the third fairy variation. (Paris Opera simply numbers the variations in its program, rather than listing the symbolic gifts.) Schor’s presence extended far beyond her rank. Her grasp of the layered musical and choreographic texture was complete, filling the theater with a quiet authority that suggests she’s destined to rise. Another standout was Hohyun Kang, a Première Danseuse (the rank just below Étoile), who performed the sixth variation—typically the Lilac Fairy’s solo. Kang is part of a stellar wave of Korean dancers flooding the ballet world. Paris Opera, once known for its insularity, is becoming more international. Kang, a radiant and technically refined artist, is a clear example of that shift—her rise has been swift and well-earned. The Lilac Fairy and the Royal Archetype The Lilac Fairy is the guiding thread of the ballet, and in this version she is presented less as a mythical being and more as a dignified woman of royal power. She wears heels and a gown, not a tutu—honored not as fantasy but as a commanding regal figure. Lucie Fenwick, also a Quadrille, brings charm and poise to the role. Yet between the regency costume and the narrative constraints, the role reads more as a character archetype than a fully expressive part. Act I: Politics and Pirouettes Act I begins with a little prelude of its own. The King, determined to avoid his daughter’s doomed fate, issues a kingdom-wide ban on spindles. In an act of enforcement, peasants caught with spindle needles are threatened with death—heads and hands locked into contraptions, awaiting execution—until the Queen mercifully intervenes. A funny thing to ponder when sitting in the theater that was built to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. Then the moment everyone waits for: the entrance of Princess Aurora. It’s her sixteenth birthday, the moment of her societal debut—and also the moment she becomes a pawn in dynastic matchmaking. Étoile Valentina Colasante is a powerful and gracious Aurora. Her innocence is seasoned, suited to a ballerina of her stature. She gives us not the sprightly debutante, but the woman Aurora will become—at 25, at 35. Her naiveté has been absorbed in time, and we love her for it. This complexity adds richness to the famed Rose Adagio, where four princes each offer her a rose as she performs one of ballet’s most demanding sequences: extended balances in attitude (leg lifted in the back, bent at a 90-degree angle) while changing partners mid-pose. Colasante’s version is Aurora post-coronation. Carabosse reappears to fulfill her prophecy. Disguised—barely—in the same costume with only a billowing cape, she lures the unsuspecting Aurora into pricking her finger. It’s hard to imagine the princess falling for the ruse, but it works and the plot moves forward. The Dream Scene: Ballet as Impressionism What follows is one of ballet’s more visually arresting sequences: the dream scene. Paris Opera’s staging is narcotically beautiful—if Monet’s waterlilies became a ballet, this would be it. Prince Désiré, danced by the delicate and exacting Premier Danseur Thomas Docquir, is first seen on a royal hunt, distracted by flirtation with a radiant countess—a glimpse at paths not taken. The Lilac Fairy appears, leading him to a vision of Aurora, his ideal woman. Here, the corps de ballet proves its power. It’s very easy to think of ballet as an art form represented by its stars and soloists, but it’s often the corps de ballet that has the most powerful effect—and this is one of those moments. When the cosmic geometry of the group washes over our eyes in a visual and musical poem—that, unlike most of the ballet, is a section that could stand on its own outside of any narrative context. Act III: A Tableau, A Breath Held And yet, the most breathtaking scene in the ballet—at least in this particular version, for you won’t see it in quite the same way elsewhere—comes at the start of Act III: the wedding act. A princess kissed, a curse broken, a prophecy fulfilled, we—the audience and the characters—are ready for a party. The curtain lifts, and a simple and yet surprising tableau of the royal court in suspended motion evokes an audible gasp from the entire audience. Many of the dancers have their backs to the house. It’s a moment of such subtle and completely unassuming visual beauty—one that serves neither story nor character—a distilled impression of the royal spirit. In this single gesture, we feel unequivocally Nureyev’s reverence for this ballet, for the comportment and order that the theater demands, the nostalgia for a royal Russia. And with our lost breath, we agree with him. Bluebird and Other Tales The Bluebird pas de deux, one of ballet’s most iconic interludes, is a coveted opportunity for rising and established
