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The Sleeping Beauty, Royal Ballet 2023


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1 hour ago, emmarose said:

Anyway, I was there last night and what an absolute treat, there's not much more to say about Marianela and Vadim that hasn't already been said in the past, but they just work so beautifully together with complete ease and both were sublime on their own and then magical together.

The Rose adagio, well, towards the end my heart was beating so fast, I don't know how the ballerinas keep their cool, but flawless, not a wobble in sight!

 

What a gorgeous Lilac Fairy Fumi makes, enchanting us all throughout the whole evening. Kristen was a fabulous Carabosse. And the standouts were the Bluebird pairing of Joseph Sissens and Isabella Gasparini, just wow, I love Isabella, she has such a beautiful and light quality to her dancing that was perfect here and Jo just was exceptional, it wasn't just his leaps, but the crispness of his technique that really stood out.

 

1 hour ago, EVWS said:

I agree absolutely with everything that @emmarose wrote! One of the better Sleeping Beauty's that I've seen in a long time (even Act 3 which I do often find can drag a bit until the final PDD...)

 

Marianela & Vadim were subline in everyway, so lovely to see two artists with such strong, controlled technique which really then allows them to be in the moment and almost 'play' with their musicality and phrasing. What a treat to be able to see them both! I may be wrong, but I also thought that they were dancing at a faster tempi compared to previous years, which I think is a good thing - it adds a freshness and excitement to what you are watching on stage. 

 

Loved Fumi as the Lilac Fairy, radiating such warmth and benevolence all evening. I thought Claire Calvert as the Woodland Glade & Yuhui Choe as Golden Vine were the standout fairy variations in the Prologue. Joseph Sissens and Isabella Gasparini were fantastic in the Bluebird, I've long admired both of them and it was lovely that they were given this to dance for the opening night. 

 

Special mention to Kristin McNally as Carabosse - wickedly fantastic! 

 

This was my first full length live Sleeping Beauty and I really enjoyed it, even though it's not my favourite ballet. I saw Act 3 at the ROH when it was done post Covid as part of a triple bill and found it rather sparse and unengaging.  However seeing the whole thing is much better especially with such great performances all round.  

 

I can't really add anything to the above reviews with which I agree absolutely.  I thought Marianela's Rose Adagio was incredible - and deservedly got a very warm round of applause from the audience. The biggest cheer went to Vadim for his Act 3 solo which was just breathtaking.  Talking of Vadim, I noticed that at the end of the clips on his IG stories he's posted a picture, obviously taken on his way home, of him standing on a tree stump, holding a bunch of flowers and doing an arabesque!  Bit different from the usual post performance pictures!

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

I absolutely adored that production as danced by ENB and would love to see it come back.

So would I.  I will never forget seeing Agnes Oaks dance Aurora at the Coli.  In the Rose Adagio you could have gone out to the bar, had a drink, come back and she would still be balancing en pointe, on one leg.  It was stunning.  The house roared its approval at the end of the adagio...one of the most sustained rounds of applause I can remember hearing during a ballet.

 

I too love this production.  

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7 minutes ago, Sim said:

So would I.  I will never forget seeing Agnes Oaks dance Aurora at the Coli.  In the Rose Adagio you could have gone out to the bar, had a drink, come back and she would still be balancing en pointe, on one leg.  It was stunning.  The house roared its approval at the end of the adagio...one of the most sustained rounds of applause I can remember hearing during a ballet.

 

I too love this production.  

 

Agnes Oaks was the most glorious of Auroras.

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1 hour ago, Nina99 said:

The biggest cheer went to Vadim for his Act 3 solo which was just breathtaking.  

 

It seems the men have leeway on that solo. It didn't look like the one danced at the gen'l rehearsal (sorry, can't remember who was dancing)

 

To add: It was Bracewell.

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4 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Well, David Jays is first up with a decidedly cool review in today's Standard - see Links.  "Decorous but dull." 

Sorry Jan - the Times gave it 5 stars (in tomorrow's links)

 

Ballets don’t come any better than this.

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My only gripe about Beauty is it’s length but I’d be okay with that if it started earlier but I’ve moaned about that elsewhere on the Forum! 
I do think Tchaikovsky’s music sustains it. When Nureyev and Fonteyn were dancing my favourite Act was the vision scene and some choreography they did together is no more but it really added to the pathos and drew you in gently so a real contrast to the “fireworks”  of Act 3.

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14 minutes ago, oncnp said:

 

It seems the men have leeway on that solo. It didn't look like the one danced at the gen'l rehearsal (sorry, can't remember who was dancing)

 

To add: It was Bracewell.

 

Yes - Vadim executed a circle of barrel rolls, followed by an electric traditional manege. William began with something different before switching into his manege. [I have a feeling that people have tried to describe Will's first passage, which is stage centre, on here up thread.]

 

There were also differences between dancers, noted on  BCF, with the male solo in Nutcracker.

 

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4 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

If we were all the same the world would be a very boring place!

Agreed!

 

Leaving the ROH last night, I thought that was the fastest 3 hours I've experienced in a while.

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I remember the first time I saw Lucinda Dunn dance Aurora. She was 18 or 19, relatively fresh out of RBS, lured home by Maina Gielgud, and it was literally breathtaking - nobody breathed during the rose adage! Twenty years later she could still do it.

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52 minutes ago, LinMM said:

My only gripe about Beauty is it’s length but I’d be okay with that if it started earlier but I’ve moaned about that elsewhere on the Forum!

 

I think the Beauty improves when the story is done and dusted. It's a long haul to Act 3...

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3 hours ago, Sim said:

So would I.  I will never forget seeing Agnes Oaks dance Aurora at the Coli.  In the Rose Adagio you could have gone out to the bar, had a drink, come back and she would still be balancing en pointe, on one leg.  It was stunning.  The house roared its approval at the end of the adagio...one of the most sustained rounds of applause I can remember hearing during a ballet.

 

I too love this production.  

 

Did Oaks dance in the current ENB production, though?  I certainly remember her dancing in the previous one (with the columns), but I'm not so sure about this one.

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18 minutes ago, alison said:

 

Did Oaks dance in the current ENB production, though?  I certainly remember her dancing in the previous one (with the columns), but I'm not so sure about this one.

I don't really care which one it was...she was amazing!

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Shouldn't a critic judge a classical ballet from the Russian Imperial period as a classical ballet from the Russian Imperial period? Against the best performance and production standard of that style and that choreography? Complaining that it's not McMillan or Bourne is surely like complaining that an apple doesn't taste like a pear. 

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5 hours ago, LinMM said:

My only gripe about Beauty is it’s length but I’d be okay with that if it started earlier but I’ve moaned about that elsewhere on the Forum! 
I do think Tchaikovsky’s music sustains it. When Nureyev and Fonteyn were dancing my favourite Act was the vision scene and some choreography they did together is no more but it really added to the pathos and drew you in gently so a real contrast to the “fireworks”  of Act 3.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of this choreography by Ashton?  Which Dowell decided to scrap when he made the unbelievable decision to "go back to the original" for greater "authenticity".  Hence the RB got lumbered with the Makarova one? A production so awful IMO that it put me off the SB for years.   

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9 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of this choreography by Ashton?  Which Dowell decided to scrap when he made the unbelievable decision to "go back to the original" for greater "authenticity".  Hence the RB got lumbered with the Makarova one? A production so awful IMO that it put me off the SB for years.   

 

I have only seen the current version which I first saw in 2014. How does this version differ from the previous incarnations, and how similar is it to the 1946 originally danced at Covent Garden?

 

I have had a look at ROHCollections which gives a lot of useful background detail https://www.rohcollections.org.uk/Work.aspx?work=1344

 

Are any of the previous versions available online?

 

 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of this choreography by Ashton?  Which Dowell decided to scrap when he made the unbelievable decision to "go back to the original" for greater "authenticity".  Hence the RB got lumbered with the Makarova one? A production so awful IMO that it put me off the SB for years.   

I think you may be confusing this with Swan Lake. The production which preceded Dowell’s “back to the original” Petipa/Ivanov version, had much Ashton in it: Act IV, the Act I waltz,  and, in Act III, the pas de quatre and Neapolitan Dance. The last of these was eventually re-instated by Dowell.

IIRC the short-lived Makarova Sleeping Beauty (which premiered in 2003) was commissioned in 2002 by the late Ross Stretton during his brief tenure as Director.

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6 minutes ago, James said:

I think you may be confusing this with Swan Lake. The production which preceded Dowell’s “back to the original” Petipa/Ivanov version, had much Ashton in it: Act IV, the Act I waltz,  and, in Act III, the pas de quatre and Neapolitan Dance. The last of these was eventually re-instated by Dowell.

IIRC the short-lived Makarova Sleeping Beauty (which premiered in 2003) was commissioned in 2002 by the late Ross Stretton during his brief tenure as Director.

 

Ah, ok.  I am not familiar with all the versions of either, but I do remember a report saying Ashton was so upset with Dowell, they ended up having a shouting match!

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10 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Well, David Jays is first up with a decidedly cool review in today's Standard - see Links.  "Decorous but dull." 

I really enjoyed opening night (and general rehearsal before that).  But I would agree that I found the "band" a bit dull, a good number of times I thought that conducting was way too slow.  Even the balance-experienced and music-stretching principals dancing both the Auroras I've seen looked like they had issues keeping up (or rather down) with the music.

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