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faeries/fairies...


Guest pinkpixiedust

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Guest pinkpixiedust

However you like to spell it! I haven't been here for a while, sorry! I'll try to remember not to abbreviate! Anyway my question is, Is there any ballets about faeries or with faeries in them? I would like to do faeries for one of my art projects but it has to link to my first project, mostly about ballet so i was thinking I could use ballet to link them!

Thanks

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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 :)

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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!";)

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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!)

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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.

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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?

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