Dance
Sleeping Beauty (Royal Opera House)
Born under a tricky star
Giannandrea Poesio
Those of us who watch the BBC 2 series The House know that the current Royal Ballet production of Sleeping Beauty (1994) was born under a tricky star. Both the company director, Anthony Dowell, and the designer, Maria Bjornson, strove to evoke the 'magic' of the 1890 work while exploring its complex literary and choreo- graphic symbolism. The outcome, however, is an awkward blend in which Marius Peti- pa's choreographic layout is overshadowed by a claustrophobic predominance of visual effects; the focus in this production seems to be more on props and sets than on the dancing itself.
Created to celebrate the tsarist regime at a political moment when propaganda was particularly needed, Sleeping Beauty was a compendium of Petipa's theatrical canons, the 'grand spectacle' formula among them. The 'splendour' he conferred on the 1890 production resulted mainly from his use of the 'masses', namely the deployment of hundreds of dancers and supernumeraries on stage. To cram the action into a limited space — Bjornson's sets and costumes reduce the stage considerably — means to alter the text of the work.
In the Prologue, a huge table stands as an explicit reference to Charles Perrault's 17th-century fairytale, where each good fairy is given golden plates and chiselled cutlery as tokens of gratitude for bestowing magic gifts on the baby princess. It is from under that table that the wicked fairy Cara- bosse makes her appearance like a big, unexpected rat, in order to juxtapose her `earthly' nature to that of the other fairies, who arrive descending a staircase as if from a higher dimension.
In Act Two, the action takes place in winter, with a profusion of sleighs, hot drinks, icicles and snowflakes to remind the audience of the connection between the myth of the 100-year sleep and the cycle of the seasons; the awakening kiss makes a large cobweb dissolve to symbolise the end of darkness (the princess's name is, in fact, Aurora or 'Dawn). Finally, the oval frame that surrounds the backcloth in every act, formed by a throng of eye-twisting slanted Pillars, is a reference to those oval stucco mouldings to be found over the doors in the corridors of French and Italian 18th- century mansions, which encase small fres- coes portraying different scenes of the same story.
Despite their symbolic function, none of these elements is necessary. The distinctive trait of Petipa's choreography is its self- explanatory chromatic palette of symbols that does not require any additional visual enhancement. This is true, of course, only when the dancing is performed correctly, artistically and technically.
The Royal Ballet is in a good form and can boast many good artists. Still, the over- all feeling is that few people on stage are fully aware of the allegorical nuances of the ballet. Only sporadically can one see one of the fairies conveying the essence of her gift through her dancing. The 'lullaby', rocking arm movements of the first fairy, whose gift is childlike purity, are often hurried and meaningless; similarly, the waving arms of the third fairy, who bestows 'fertility' according to the ancient Russian tradition of spreading breadcrumbs on the cradle, seldom recall undulating ears of corn under the summer breeze, as they are sup- posed to (only Sarah Wildor can conjure up this image). Not to mention the various mime passages that occur throughout the ballet.
Although Dowell has restored the full sequence of conventional gestures with which Carabosse curses Aurora, some interpreters do not seem to be at ease with it and in most cases Carabosse, traditional- ly performed by a man en travesti, becomes an unbearable over-gesticulating drag queen. Only Monica Mason, one of the few female artists to excel in this role, can make the wicked fairy vicious and noble at the same time. Also, the Lilac Fairies I have seen tend to overlook their mimed parts, with dreadful consequences for a choreography that relies on a calibrated combination of pure dancing and mime.
Things change slightly as far as the prin- cipal dancers are concerned. The Royal Ballet can offer an interesting variety of Auroras to suit each taste. From Viviana Durante to Miyako Yoshida, from flam- boyant Sylvie Guillem to superb Darcey Bussell, none of the Royal ballerinas is a disappointing princess. At the first perfor- mance of the current season, Muriel Valtat gave an interesting rendering of the role, which deserved more than a matinee. She was partnered by William Trevitt who, together with Irek Mukhamedov and Jonathan Cope, is one of the few convinc- ing princes I have seen. A Royal Gala will celebrate, on 20 February, the 50th anniversary of Sleeping Beauty as per- formed by the Royal Ballet, then Sadler's Wells Ballet, at Covent Garden. The 1946 production was danced by Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann, while the unforget- table 'magic' designs were by Oliver Messel.
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