18 replies to this topic

[87Sigfried87]

I've never known all the names of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty....I know only the Lilac fairy...can you help me giving all of them their own names?thanks.Sorry if the post already exhists.

[cubanmiamiboy]

 dancerboy87, on Oct 8 2007, 02:28 PM, said:

I've never known all the names of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty....I know only the Lilac fairy...can you help me giving all of them their own names?thanks.Sorry if the post already exhists.

Candite, Coulante, Fleur de Farine, Miettes qui Tombent, Canari qui Chante,  Violente and our favorite  Fee des Lilas

[Mme. Hermine]

http://ballettalk.in...?showtopic=4168

[87Sigfried87]

 cubanmiamiboy, on Oct 8 2007, 08:39 PM, said:

Candite, Coulante, Fleur de Farine, Miettes qui Tombent, Canari qui Chante,  Violente and our favorite  Fee des Lilas

Thank you very much.Very good;-) Now I have to match the names and the dancers.Canari is the yellow one with a feather and Violente is maybe the one who points his index around....I'm gonna check:-)

[Helene]

Pacific Northwest Ballet's program (Ronald Hynd version) lists the fairies as:

Lilac Fairy
Fairy of Beauty
Fairy of Temperament
Fairy of Purity
Fairy of Joy
Fairy of Wit
Fair of Generosity

The Mariinsky Ballet's program (for the Sergeyev version) lists the fairies as:

Lilac Fairy
Tender Fairy
Playful Fairy
Generous Fairy
Brave Fairy
Carefree Fairy

and then:

Diamond Fairy
Sapphire Fairy
Gold Fairy
Silver Fairy
Caraboss Fairy

[rg]

the names posted in answer to your question come from the 1890 libretto and ballet plan for marius petipa's staging of THE SLEEPING BEAUTY and thus are the original designations.
since that time, even with productions that attempted to re-stage petipa's choreography faithfully, the names for the individual good fairies (or fairy godmothers) have changed variously to suit the companies putting on the ballet in their individual locales.
the chart given as an attachment here is from DANCE AND DANCERS in 1967 and indicates the variety of names used during the 20th century.
the copy of the chart scanned here is from a press kit prepared for ABT's 1976 production of THE SLEEPING BEAUTY in mary skeaping's staging.
since then, there have been further productions, at ABT and elsewhere, with each tending to provide a list of fairy names that are felt to belong to the current production in question - only the lilac fairy and the fairy carabosse tend to retain their names consistently from production.
[re: this scan, as i have said, for some reason i am unable to generate .txt scans that are not huge files, so i've done this 'text' as a 'normal' .jpg scan and i hope it's readable.]

Attached Files

•  FairyNamesChart.JPG   247.1K   149 downloads

[dancingmeghan]

I knew the canari qui chante/gold fairy had a more proper name then what my friend refered to her as...'crack fairy'  

[Helene]

rg, thank you so much!  

It is fascinating to read that "They are listed in the order of dancing their solos; all these productions play the music in the same order."

Some are easily correlated, like "carefree" and "light heartedness," but others are very different takes on the same music -- Tenderness/Chastity, Courage/Laughter -- and others are interesting extensions:  joy to high spirits (to "temperament" in the Hynd), and there's a difference between bounty (getting) and generosity (giving).  (Of course the former can make the latter possible.)

[carbro]

Interesting, too, that Chastity was introduced in 1966, as the sexual revolution was gaining critical mass.

If Miettes qui Tombent is bountiful, like a harvest, I take it as a synonym for generous.

[Lexie]

On the credits of an early 90's Royal Ballet production, the names are given as:

Candide - Fairy of Purity
Coulante - Fairy of vitality
The Breadcrumb Fairy - Fairy of Generosity
Canary - Fairy of Eloquence
Violente - Fairy of Passion
The Lilac Fairy - Fairy of wisdom
and of course, Carabosse.

These seem to be pretty much in accordance with the various names from rg's scan, but easier for the audience to understand than the original names?

[Mel Johnson]

As we're dealing with a connection between a name in a program and choreographic material, I suppose that the names are only important in how well they depict their attributes.  I think "Eloquence" for Canari is kind of funny.

[Mme. Hermine]

 Mel Johnson, on Jul 25 2008, 07:14 AM, said:

As we're dealing with a connection between a name in a program and choreographic material, I suppose that the names are only important in how well they depict their attributes.  I think "Eloquence" for Canari is kind of funny.

kind of a chatty fairy, i suppose...

[Mel Johnson]

Fairy of the Cellphone, Fairy of the Water Cooler, Fairy of Office Politics....

[Mme. Hermine]

IM Fairy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hans]

Facebook Fairy...but this seems to be turning into another "Fairies for this Modern Era" thread.