11 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Well, since it's the holiday season, perhaps the Sugar Plum Fairy of The Nutcracker would suit your purposes?  She even has a wand.    

[dirac]

Well, since it's the holiday season, perhaps the Sugar Plum Fairy of The Nutcracker would suit your purposes?  She even has a wand.    

[Alexandra]

A Midsummer Night's Dream has lots of fairies.  There's one version by George Balanchine, still in repertory at the New York City Ballet, and another by Frederick Ashton, in the repertories of both American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet.

Sleeping Beauty has six (sometimes 7) fairies in its Prologue and the Lilac Fairy has a big role throughout.

This sounds like a terrific project!  

There were a lot of 19th century ballets with fairies in them -- different kind of fairy life, like La Sylphide (sylphs) and Giselle (wilis), and various naiads and dryads.  

I don't want to name them all -- others will have their favorite fairies

[Alexandra]

A Midsummer Night's Dream has lots of fairies.  There's one version by George Balanchine, still in repertory at the New York City Ballet, and another by Frederick Ashton, in the repertories of both American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet.

Sleeping Beauty has six (sometimes 7) fairies in its Prologue and the Lilac Fairy has a big role throughout.

This sounds like a terrific project!  

There were a lot of 19th century ballets with fairies in them -- different kind of fairy life, like La Sylphide (sylphs) and Giselle (wilis), and various naiads and dryads.  

I don't want to name them all -- others will have their favorite fairies

[Calliope]

I'm partial to the Sleeping Beauty fairies
Carabosse, is she a fairy gone bad?!

Cinderalla has a Fairy Godmother

[Mel Johnson]

I've always had the feeling that Carabosse was just an old fairy who had been forgotten on the invitation list, and so she felt abused!  Apparently, I was onto something, as in the original procession to the Wedding scene, she is included, this time with invitation.  Since Cecchetti was the Bluebird in this scene, they got a very regal character dancer of a certain age, and dressed her up right smart.  Moral:  "Good manners make everybody beautiful!";)

[Mme. Hermine]

wasn't carlotta brianza the original aurora?  because i thought it very interesting that when diaghilev produced the 'sleeping  princess' in 1921, carlotta brianza was his carabosse!

[Mel Johnson]

Yes, that's correct.  Although she could still do all the things required of Aurora, Brianza herself figured she was a bad candidate to portray a twenty-year-old, as Diaghilev had asked her.  She therefore gracefully accepted the part of Carabosse.

[Mme. Hermine]

In a rather rare opportunity i have the program for those performances in front of me and thought this might be interesting:
cast list:
King Florestan: M. Leonard Treer
The Queen: Mme. Vera Sudeikina
Cantalabutte, Master of Ceremonies: M. Jean Jazwinsky
The Fairy of the Pine Woods: Mme. Felia Dubrovska
Her page: M. Errol Addison
The Cherry Blossom Fairy: Mme. Lydia Sokolova
Her Page: M. Leon Woizikovsky
The Fairy of the Humming Birds: Mme. Nijinska
Her Page: M. Nicholas Zvereff
The Fairy of the Song-Birds: Mme. Lubov Egorova
Her Page: M. Nicholas Kremneff
The Carnation Fairy: Mme. Vera Nemtchinova
Her Page: M. Tadeo Slavinsky
The Fairy of the Mountain Ash: Mme. Lubov Tchernicheva
Her Page: M. Anatol Vilzak
The Lilac Fairy: Mme. Lydia Lopokova
Her Page: M. Stanislas Idzikowski
The Wicked Fairy: Mme. Carlotta Brianza
Her Two Pages: Mm. Fedorov and Winter
Her Four Rats: Mm. Savitzki, Karnecki, Yalmoujinsky, Lukine
Royal Nurses: Mmes. Allanova, Krassovska, Majcherska, Komarova
Ministers of State: Mm. Semenoff, Singaievski, C. Stepanov
Royal Pages: Mm. Mikolaichik, Bourman, Ochimovski, Patrikeeff
The King's Herald: M. Kosiarsky
The Royal Physician: M. Pavlov
Maids of Honour: Mmes. Klementovicz, Bewicke, Moreton, Sumarokova
Ladies in Waiting: Mmes. d'Albaicin, Coxon, Damaskina, Plotnikova, Savitska, Rosenstein, Antonova, Evina, Gostelmilova, A. SUmarokova, L. Nemtchinova, Grekulova, Poplavska, Astafieva

And that's just Act 1, Scene 1!

The Princess Aurora, in the foreword, is said to be 16 years old at the time of the action, so I can imagine Brianza not wanting to try it! (noble of her, even with the wicked fairy being a meaty part!)

[Mel Johnson]

Actually, in the original libretto, she's twenty:

http://www.balletale...ty/Libretto.htm

[Mme. Hermine]

i understand, mel, just that in diaghilev's program it says:
"In sixteen years the little Princess Aurora had grown into a  lovely maiden, the fame of whose beauty had spread far and near.  There came to woo her four princes, from Spain, from England, from India, and from Italy, and the King and Queen prepared festivities in their honour.  All the villagers were invited, but when they came, the master of ceremonies saw, to his horror, that four of them had spinning wheels and spindles.  This was contrary to a law that had been enacted sixteen years before, making it a criminal offence to bring a spindle within a mile of the Palace."

do you know why they would have made her sixteen?  even then that must have seemed young.

[Mel Johnson]

I think you may have hit on the operative word, if that is one of the changes worked by Diaghilev on the original work - "maiden".

The guarantee upon the virginity of a bride seems to be very important in British circles of the post-Edwardian era; recall that Princess Diana had to get a physical before she married Prince Charles, part of which was a certification of virginity!  

Never mind that she's asleep for a hundred years, and by the time she gets married, she'll be either 116 or 120 years old!  After all, at that age, what's four years?