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A Sleeping Beauty for NYCB -- Should


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Both Terry Teachout and Robert Gottlieb, in their short books on Balanchine, mention that it was a performance of Sleeping Beauty that sparked a passion for ballet in the young George Balanchine, up to then an unwilling ballet student.

Gottlieb adds: "Balanchine's love for The Sleeping Beauty would last his entire life: In his final years he was still contemplating presenting it at the New York City Ballet."

Do you think this is a project NYCB should (and could) do?

If so -- and if they asked you to get involved -- what kind of Sleeping Beauty would you make? How would it differ from ABT's or the Royal's or something from Russia or France? What would it look like? Whom would you cast?

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(oops -- posting at the same time as Hans)

Peter Martins did do a production of Sleeping Beauty for NYCB, which has been revived several times since its premiere. (I saw it in February 2004 during a short visit to NYC.) It includes Balanchine's Garland Dance, for children through corps. (I don't have my Choreography by Balanchine "bible" with me to confirm whether this was choreographed for the Tchaikovsky Festival.)

I find it frenetic, particularly the Fairy variations in the first Act, and the Jewels suite in the last. I do love the Puss 'n Boots and Little Red Riding Hood sections in the last act, though. I also thought the sets and costumers were quite beautiful, and I liked the use of watercolor projections to make transitions of time and place.

Unless Martins rethinks this, I don't imagine that NYCB will perform a more patient production that unfolds instead of rushes.

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Woops. I forgot -- never having seen it. :cool: Thanks Hans and Helene for catching this so quickly.

I just changed the title from "Should they do it?" to "Should they (re)do it?)

So let's rethink this topic.

IF YOUV'E SEEN THIS -- WHAT DO YOU THINK OF IT AND HOW MIGHT YOU CHANGE IT (if at all).

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT -- THE ORIGNAL QUESTIONS STILL STAND.

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Martins is unlikely to replace his with another choreographer's. I find it one of his better efforts.

Patricia Zipprodt did the costumes and they are lovely---colours, fabrics, movement, etc. She was a gifted costumer and these are outstanding.

It is a gorgeous production, and I am happy whenever they put it in the programming.

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I have the exact opposite reaction from Juliet--I hate the Martins Sleeping Beauty and would be happy never to see it again. As I've said before, if you're going to choreograph, get your own ballet (something Martins clearly has no problems doing) don't ruin someone else's.

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I agree with Juliet -- beautiful sets and costumes. The use of projections is a great idea, and very well executed. As the Overture to Act I starts, and we approach the Castle from the woods, along the road, through the Allee, the Castle growing nearer as the music grows in urgency, it raises the pulse rate of even the most jaded balleto, until finally, the light shines behind the scrim, it rises, and . . . THE WALTZ! (I do not like the colors of the Waltz costumes.

Yes, Balanchine choreographed the Waltz for the Tchaikovsky festival. It does not have the same impact within the PM production as it did in the T Fest.,, and it's been suggested that when first performed, Balanchine used the whole stage. Nowadays, it is done with a set that occupies a good chunk of the stage, so is compressed and cramped.

In terms of actual choreography, I do not like the changes. Martins had hoped (as stated in pre-premiere interviews) to present the Fairy variations as an uninterrupted suite. It didn't work, because the audience seems to need to applaud each one. A pet peeve of mine was his reversal of accent in the diagonal of Aurora's Act III variation, putting it on the plie down, rather than the pique up. It makes the whole phrase feel very heavy.

However, the production retains enough traditional elements to make a rewarding experience, if one chooses ones casts carefully.

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I don't care for the Martins' choreography, but at this stage in my life (having seen so much of his work that progresses from medicre to dreadful) I am grateful that it retained some semblance of Petipa and Balanchine.....

The Fairy variations done as a suite do not work because the pause is choreographically and dramatically necessary between each one. A gift is being presented--one needs to reflect on it's particular qualities, not speed on to the next one before it's completely unwrapped.

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Martins' Beauty is gorgeously designed & does retain Petipa's best-known segments. The choreographic enhancements or changes are very much in the NYCB tradition of greater speed and intricate musical accents, e.g., the "Jewels Quartet" in the final scene. I would not change it.

To 'dump' an Imperial-Russian or Soviet version of Beauty on the NYCB would be unwise. NYCB's version works because it bears the hallmarks of that company's dynamic style, without neglecting Petipa.

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I am rarely speechless, PetipaFan, but you have silenced me! Ah well, disparity in taste is what makes us interesting, I suppose.....

Carbro, you are too funny!! But in *my* fairy tale, we all applaud the beauty and taste of the giver.....and our individual Fairies as well! If fairies are offended, Things Might Happen....

Natalia, I completely agree with your points.

Rather than redesigning NYCB's Beauty, how about another company's--say, ABT?

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I don't know how I missed seeing even photos of this production, but after the truly dreary and oddly colored designs for the NYCB Swan Lake, I am totally fascinated to find out that the Sleeping Beauty is beautiful to look at. Anyone have specifics? Or comparisons with ABT, Paris, one of the Royals?

And how about the casting? Do you have a dream cast for this production?

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Hm, well, I don't like ABT's Sleeping Beauty much either, but I prefer it to NYCB's version, which is apparently sponsored by Red Bull and Starbucks. :) I'm sure it won't come as a surprise that I prefer the Kirov's reconstruction (although it would be nice if they would fix the bluebird pdd). However, SB is my absolute favorite ballet in the world ever, so that's why I'm so picky about it.

Bart, my dream cast involves Carlotta Brianza...oh, you meant for the NYCB version. I think Jenifer Ringer makes a gorgeous Aurora. It would be nice to see her with Peter Boal (not going to happen) or Nikolaj Hubbe IMO. Abi Stafford made an excellent Princess Florine; maybe we'll get to see her do it again some day--or even Aurora!

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" am rarely speechless, PetipaFan, but you have silenced me! Ah well, disparity in taste is what makes us interesting, I suppose....." - Juliet

Where art thou Juliet?

I just reviewed the music of Sleeping Beauty my goodness there isn't ANYTHING that stands out in the whole work! There's not one great melody, not one movement in the whole thing of any interest to me. I find this work completely uninspired.

But Swan Lake...the pathos, the tragedy, the enormity of the emotion in the opening movement! Then the 3rd movement valse, there's that magnificent unforgettable melody, da-di-daaa-dat, you know the one and then it resolves into the MOST ENORMOUS CLIMAX in 3! I remember almost having a stroke looking at the sheet music the first time!

There are several other magnificent movements in Swan, there is nothing at all like this in Sleeping Beauty...

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...but after the truly dreary and oddly colored designs for the NYCB Swan Lake, I am totally fascinated to find out that the Sleeping Beauty is beautiful to look at.  Anyone have specifics?

And how about the casting?  Do you have a dream cast for this production?

I guess one could say Swanless Dessert is a more mature and creative work of Mr. Martins. But somehow, his Sleeping Beauty has a Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry look about it, and is much truer to the real thing (which, I suppose, would be the Old Royal, with or sans Ashton's ammendations) than one could possibly suspect from that later creation. Yes, I wish he'd let it breathe at some places, and mini-"improvements" hurt, but its pace seems mostly natural for the company. I was too young and stupid to see Fonteyn's interpretation, but I have seen one transcendent Aurora.

Ashley Bouder's second performance in February 2004. This performance avoided the bobble that occured in the Rose Adagio of her first, but the Adagio still lacked the complexity (making each suitor seem as different from the others for example) one would expect from a mature-and sublime-artist. Total magic struck in the Vision Scene. With profound artistry, she presented a princess just as desperate as Odette, seeking in this case freedom from the prison of perpetual sleep, instead of a swan's body. From then, to the end, she, Damien Woetzle and Maria Kowroski were glorious. A production that can frame a performance like that can't be all that bad.

So far in the new century this, plus Alina Cojocaru's Cendrillon, are at the top of my list for full-length ballets. Close, the Bayaderes of Cojocaru and Zakharova.(The Veronika Part Swan Lake on July 4, Diana Vishneva's Giselle, and Alexandra Ansanelli's Harliquinade all require a few month's contemplation before possibly leaping them into that company.)

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Maybe I'm influenced by Petipa's choreography for SB, which IMO is the most beautiful in all ballet, but I can think of a great many beautiful melodies, such as the Act I Garland Waltz, the Lilac Fairy's theme, the adagio of the Grand Pas de Deux in Act III and the adagio of the Bluebird Pas de Deux. Not to mention the gorgeous cello solo that begins the adagio of the Vision Scene. To me, Sleeping Beauty is just packed with elegant grace and harmony, each moment more beautiful than the next. I love Swan Lake too, but its dark and creepy eye-rolling melodrama, combined with harsh (for Tchaikovsky), bombastic, and sometimes downright ugly music punctuated by breathtaking moments of lyrical beauty, is no match IMO for the harmonious delicacy of Sleeping Beauty, in which no part of the ballet overwhelms another (the music for Swan Lake frequently overwhelms poor Ivanov's choreography at times) but all elements are combined in a whole of matchless perfection.

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I love the NYCB SLEEPING BEAUTY...I especially like the fairies, their cavaliers & pages "number", and I love the Vision Scene. The sets are gorgeous. The evening moves along: all dance, not bogged down at any point. The Lilac Fairy for me is the epitome of goodness and grace; it's her ballet, really (don't tell Aurora!)

Gorgeous music and a great chance to see all sorts of casting from every rank of the Company, and even the little kids are palatable as Balanchine wove them into the Garland Waltz. Looking forward to the next revival!

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Thanks drb, for those impressions. They really help me to visualize why this production has so many fans.

(One of the frustrations of reading so many reports of productions around the world is that I (we) usually couldn't be there in the audience. I always appreciate a poster's assistance in helping me "see" something of the production they have loved -- or hated. Thanks to ALL who do this for the rest of us.)

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After considering it today, I wonder what it would be like to see NYCB do "real" Petipa--that is, the Sergeyev Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake, not a production that Peter Martins has pre-Balanchinized for the dancers' consumption. :unsure:

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one factor that pertains to NYCB's SLEEPING BEAUTY vs. its SWAN LAKE is that lincoln kirstein was v. much alive, around, and in the background of the former, and is on reacord variously as having guided david mitchell and his scenic designs. probably p.zipprodt's costume designs as well.

by the time SWAN LAKE was being devised he was no longer alive.

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I think Sleeping Beauty pales in comparison musically to Swan Lake and the Nutcracker I don't want to see it anywhere.  :devil:

I feel that way about 'Nutcracker' and have said so; but since your comment on Sleeping Beauty wounds me, I vow never to utter another bad word about 'Nutcracker'.---I wonder, did you see the Kirov reconstruction? 4 hours of bliss. :(

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Petipa Fan, if you had another name it might be easier to understand your aversion to Petipa's greatest ballet.... It's really shocking to hear that you don't see anything in it.....

If you don't like SB, what do you see in Petipa?

the ballet IS, I admit, extremely polished -- indeed, just under the surface, there is a considerable anxiety that's constantly breaking through in alarms, but a surface placidity, even complaisancy, keeps reasserting itself until Carabosse brings the whole thing down.... on the other hand, HER theme is the very firrst thing we hear in the overture, which is IMO a MAGNIFICENT composition and maybe the greatest overture ever written by ANYBODY, including Beethoven and mozart and Richard Strauss.... If any overture ever set out the thesis and antithesis and set you up for what's to come, it's this one....

THe thing about this music is, it's literally magical -- and the good magic is even more powerful than hte bad, magic performed by daylight.

maybe I'll ask you about particular pieces -- what about the Breadcrumb fairy's music? The pizzicato violins are making the sounds of breadcrumbs falling (which for old fashioned Russians evoked a charm against poverty, the baby will always have food), and the tenderness of that melody is SO touching it sometimes makes me cry. There are other more poignant moments in the score -- none more vulnerable for me than the solo for the vision of Aurora, with its rocking melody.

And there's the intensely sweet violin melody in the wedding variation.

It's all music about hope (and of course, fear), and Aurora is an embodiment of hope -- of all you could want to be left behind after you're gone.

The waltz you mention from Swan Lake is indeed beautiful, I agree -- and indeed, Swan Lake is incredibly beautiful, and its mood is so penetrating -- but the big waltz of Sleeping Beauty is sweeps me up more than any other I know.

WOuld it help recommend the score to say that Stravinsky loved it?

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