Sleeping Beauty (ballet)

Sleeping Beauty (Russian: Спящая красавица [Spyáschaya krasávitsa]) is a fairy tale-ballet structured in a prologue and three acts, which was commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theaters Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1888 and premiered in 1890. The music was composed by Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, who completed the score in 1889. It is his op. 66 and is the second of his ballets. In the original production, the choreography was created by Marius Petipa and the set design was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky. The libretto was written by Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Petipa himself, who were based on the story Sleeping Beauty in the Forest in the writings of the French writer Charles Perrault in 1697 and also of the German writers the Grimm Brothers in 1812. In the third act of the ballet, characters from other tales by French authors of the time appear, such as Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, The White Cat, The Blue Bird and Princess Florina, Beauty and the Beast, among others.

The work has become one of the most famous ballets in the classical repertoire. The first performance took place on January 15, 1890 at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg. Carlotta Brianza danced as the princess and Pavel Gerdt as the prince, with Marius Petipa as the Lilac Fairy and Enrico Cecchetti as the witch Carabosse. An abbreviated version by the Ballets Russes was first performed in Europe in London on November 2, 1921. Catherine Littlefield staged the first complete production of Sleeping Beauty in the United States and presented the production on February 12, 1937 at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia Ballet.

On February 2, 1939, the Sadler's Wells Theatre presented the ballet in London with Margot Fonteyn on the main role... This was the first successful production outside Russia and allowed The Sleeping Beauty reach a great popularity in all countries where the classic ballet is cultivated... The way he developed his themes and the splendid originality with which he scored the music elevated his ballets far above what his predecessors had composed.

- Roger Fiske

History

Composition

Tchaikovsky was approached on May 25, 1888 by Vsevolozhsky, who was the director of the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg, about a possible ballet adaptation based on the story of Undine. Later it was decided that Perrault's Sleeping Beauty would be the story for which he would compose the music for the ballet. Tchaikovsky did not hesitate to accept the commission even though he was aware that Swan Lake, his only previous ballet, had been received with little enthusiasm at that stage of his career.

The ballet setting Tchaikovsky worked on was based on the Brothers Grimm's version of Perrault's play Dornröschen. In this version the parents of the princess, the king and the queen, survive the dream of a hundred years to celebrate the wedding of the princess with the prince. However, Vsevolozhsky included other characters from Perrault's tales in the ballet, such as Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Blue Bird, Richie with the Forelock and Thumbnail. Other characters from French fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Goldilocks and The White Cat were also taken. For his part, Tchaikovsky was happy to inform the director of the Imperial Theaters that he had had the great pleasure of studying the play and that he had achieved just the right inspiration to do it justice.

The choreographer was Marius Petipa, ballet master of the Imperial Ballet, who wrote a very detailed list of instructions as to the musical requirements. Tchaikovsky worked quickly on the new work in Frolovskoye. He began the initial sketches in the winter of 1888 and began the orchestration of the work on May 30, 1889.

The ballet focuses on the two main conflicting forces of good (the Lilac Fairy) and evil (the witch Carabosse). Each of them has a representative leitmotif, which runs through the entire ballet and serves as an important thread for the underlying plot. In the third act of the play, however, neither motif appears and instead places the focus on the individual characters in the various court dances.

Representations

Original cast dressed for act I, 1890.

World premiere in St. Petersburg

The premiere took place on January 15, 1890 at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, with choreography by Marius Petipa and direction by Riccardo Drigo. The scenery was by Henrich Levogt (Prologue), Ivan Andreyev (Act I), Mikhail Bocharov (Acts I and II), Matvey Shishkov (Act III). The costume designer was Ivan Vsevolozhsky. At the premiere, Tchaikovsky was summoned to the imperial box by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. The Tsar made the simple comment 'Very nice', which apparently irritated Tchaikovsky who probably had expected a more favorable response. The ballet premiere received more favorable praise than Swan Lake by the press, but Tchaikovsky never had the luxury of watching his work become an instant success in theaters outside of Russia. He died in 1893. In 1903, Sleeping Beauty was the second most popular ballet in the imperial ballet repertoire (Petipa / Pugni's Pharaoh's Daughter was first), having been performed 200 times in just ten years.

Other notable productions

• 1899: January 17, with choreography of Aleksandr Gorski for the Imperial Theater of the Bolshei of Moscow, led by Andréi Arends and sceneography of Anatoli Geltser and Karl Valts (vals).
• 1896: with choreography of Giorgio Saracco for La Scala in Milan. Carlotta Brianza played Aurora. But he didn't wake up much interest.
• 1921: with choreography of Nikolái Serguéiev for the Alhambra Theatre in London and scenery of Léon Bakst. It was a production of Serguéi Diáguilev with the title The Sleeping Beauty. Thanks to this assembly the ballet finally got a wide acclaim and with time a permanent place in the classic repertoire.
• 1937: with Catherine Littlefield choreography for the Philadelphia Academy of Music.
• 1946: with choreography of Ninette de Valois for the Royal Opera House of London. This production meant the Royal Ballet debut at the Royal Opera House, where it has remained as a resident ballet company. A television adaptation of this assembly was presented in the USA. by NBC in 1955 as part of its anthological series Producers' Showcase. A resurgence of this production, with the stage and a somewhat revised wardrobe, was staged in 2006 and is available on DVD.
• 1968: mounting of the Royal Festival Hall of London with the London Festival Ballet.
• 1992: reworked by Youri Vámos for the Basel Theatre, with a new narrative that represents the life of Anna Anderson and her claim to be the great duchess Anastasia. The order of musical numbers was slightly modified, some numbers replaced by other pieces of Chaikovski and the main arrangements of the choreography of Petipa are preserved, but now organized in a different narrative context - it is often represented as "records" of Anderson. This version has been interpreted by a series of ballet companies in Central Europe over the past two decades.

In 1999, the Mariinsky Ballet reconstructed the original 1899 production including reproductions of the original sets and costumes. While Konstantin Sergeyev's 1951 production of Kirov is available on DVD/Video, the "authentic" of 1999 is only available in short excerpts from 2007. Sleeping Beauty is Tchaikovsky's longest ballet. It lasts almost four hours in total, counting the breaks. Without intermissions, as it appears on various record collections, it lasts almost three hours. It is almost always cut off.

Libretto

Characters

The royal court

• King Florest XIV
• Queen
• Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, the daughter of the Queen and King Florestan XIV
• Catalabutte, master of ceremonies
• Cortesanos, Damas de honor, pajes, lacayos

Fairy

• Candide (“Hada de la sinceridad”)
• Ecoutante (“Flower eyes”)
• Miettes qui tombent (“Migajas que caen”)
• Canari qui Chante (“Canary singing”)
• Violent (“Hada of fiery passions”)
• the Fée des Lilas (“The Fairy of the Lilas”)
• The fairies of gold, silver, sapphire and diamond

The Witch

• Carabosse

The four suitors

• Prince Chéri (“loved”)
• Prince Charmant (“enchanting”)
• Prince Fortuné (“fortunate”)
• Prince Fleur de Pois (“Flor de guisante”)

Prince's hunting party

• Prince Désiré (“desired”) Florimund
• Gallifron, tutor of the prince
• The friends of the prince, duchess, baroness, Countess and Marquesas

Story characters (four couples)

• The Cat with Boots and the White Cat
• The Blue Bird and the Florine Princess
• Cinderella and the Blue Prince
• Red Riding Hood and the Wife Wolf
• Pulgarcito, his brothers and the ogre

Plot

When the princess sleeps one hundred years, the work is set in the 17th century and the second part in the 18th century, in Europe.

Prologue

King Florestan XIV and his wife, the queen, have given birth to their first child, Princess Aurora, and announce a grand christening ceremony in her honor. Six fairies are invited to the ceremony to shower the girl with gifts. So, each one approaches the newborn's cradle to give her her gift. Each fairy represents a virtue or positive trait such as beauty, courage, sweetness, musical talent and mischief (the names of the fairies and their gifts vary in the various productions). The most powerful fairy, the Lilac Fairy, arrives with her entourage, but before she can bestow her gift the palace goes dark.

With a clap of thunder appears the wicked witch Carabosse (usually played by a female character dancer or a male dancer dressed as a woman) with her minions (usually several male dancers depicted as rats or insects). Carabosse furiously questions the king and queen why she had not received an invitation to the christening. The blame falls on Catallabutte, the emcee who was in charge of the guest list. Carabosse gleefully tears off his hair and whacks it with his cane, before placing a curse on the princess in revenge: Aurora will no doubt grow up to be a beautiful, virtuous and charming young lady and princess, but on her sixteenth birthday she will prick herself finger with a spindle of a distaff and die. The kings and court are horrified and plead with Carabosse for mercy, but she shows none of it. However, the lilac fairy intervenes. Although she does not have enough power to completely undo the curse, she modifies it, allowing the spindle to cause the princess a peaceful hundred-year sleep instead of death. At the end of those hundred years, she will wake up with the kiss of a handsome prince.

Act I

Party at the palace, it's the day of Princess Aurora's sixteenth birthday. The celebrations are underway, though the King is still unsettled by Carabosse's omen. His fathers, the kings, have forbidden all spindles in his kingdom. Catallabutte discovers several peasant women weaving nearby (a forbidden activity, as it involves the use of spindles potentially harmful to the princess) and alerts the king. He initially sentences the women to harsh punishment. The queen gently persuades him to spare the innocent citizens, and he agrees. The townspeople perform an elaborate waltz with flower garlands, and Princess Aurora arrives next. Four princes from different parts of the world who have come to request the hand of the princess have been invited to the party. Aurora and the suitors perform the famous Adagio de la Rosa , one of the most notoriously difficult sequences in all of ballet.

While the party is going on, Princess Aurora is approached by an old woman and offers the princess a spindle as a gift (in some versions the gift is a non-threatening bouquet of flowers with the spindle hidden inside). Having never seen one before, Aurora curiously examines the strange object as her parents desperately try to intervene. Just as she predicted, she pricks her finger on the spindle immediately falling into a deep sleep. The strange old woman in disguise is none other than Carabosse, who mocks everyone's anguish, believing that her curse still stands and that the princess is dead. Once again, the lilac fairy calms the ruckus and reminds the kings that Aurora is only sleeping. The princess is carried to bed. The lilac fairy casts a spell that puts the whole kingdom to sleep, which will only be broken when Aurora wakes up, and covers the castle with a thick forest of vines and brambles.

Act II

A hundred years have passed. In a clearing in the forest, Prince Désiré is on a hunt with his companions. He is bummed out because of his overbearing countess girlfriend. His friends try to cheer him up with the game of blind man's buff and with a series of dances. Still unhappy, he asks to be left alone and the hunting party drives off. Alone in the forest, he meets the lilac fairy, who has chosen him to awaken Aurora. She causes the prince to have a vision where he sees the princess and the prince is immediately drawn to her. The lilac fairy explains the situation and Désiré asks the fairy to take him to her. The lilac fairy leads him through the forest until they reach the palace. Carabosse appears and tries to dissuade him, but he along with the lilac fairy finally manage to defeat her. Once inside the castle, Désiré awakens Aurora with a kiss. The rest of the court wake up too and the kings cordially agree as the prince proposes and the princess accepts.

Act III

The wedding of Princess Aurora to Prince Désiré is celebrated in the palace hall. Various characters dance for them: Puss in Boots and the White Cat, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Cinderella and the Prince, the Blue Bird and Princess Florine, courtiers and courtesans. To finish, Aurora and Prince Desiré dance a Grand pas de deux and the whole ensemble dances a mazurka. The prince and princess are married, with the lilac fairy blessing the union. The ballet ends with an apotheosis (apothéose) in which all the characters take a final bow.

Analysis

Tchaikovsky liked the ballet as it was inspired by the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty of the Forest by Charles Perrault, since the story takes place in the time of Louis XIV. In that way, he would have the opportunity to write music in the Baroque style.Tchaikovsky's interest in establishing the story dates back to 1867. It was then that he wrote a little ballet on the story for the children of Tchaikovsky's sister. he Alexandra Davydova. He had done the same with Swan Lake.

In November 1888, the composer had a meeting with theater officials and with Petipa, in which a draft of the scenario was drawn up. Petipa provided Tchaikovsky with a detailed analysis of musical needs. These were very specific guidelines about tempo, meter, as well as other musical matters. He even specified the length of certain pieces by specifying an exact number of measures. He ordered a waltz in act 1, a mazurka in act 2 and a polonaise in act 3. Petipa's specifications stimulated Tchaikovsky's imagination, rather than hampering his work as one might expect. The composer set to work, completing the score on September 1, 1889.

Throughout the entire ballet there is repeated use of two musical themes that represent good and evil, personified by the Lilac Fairy and Carabosse respectively. This provides unity to the play and also helps heighten the drama and suspense.

Instrumentation

• Cuerda: violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, bass.
• Wind wood: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English corn, 2 clarinets (if bemol, la), 2 fagotes.
• Metal Wind: 4 tubes (fa), 2 horns (if bemol, la), 2 trumpets (if bemol, la), 3 trombones, tuba.
• Percussion: shy, triangle, pandereta, box, saucers, pump, tam-tam, glockenspiel.
• Others: 2 harps, piano.

Structure

All number titles given here are from Marius Petipa's original setting, as well as from the original libretto and programs of the first performance in 1890. Significant changes made to the score from the original production are noted by Petipa and help explain why the score is often heard in different versions in concert halls today. All the librettos and programs of the works performed on the stages of the imperial theaters bore the title in French, which was the official language of the emperor's court, as well as the language in which ballet terminology moves.

Foreword — The Baptism of Princess Aurore

Evgenia Obraztsova and David Makhateli in an assembly at the Covent Garden, 2009.

No. 1-a Introduction

No. 1-b Salon march

No. 2-a Entrée des fees

No. 2-b Scène dansante

No. 3 Grand pas d'ensemble (o) Pas de six)—

a. Grand adage. Petit allégro

b. Variation - Candide

c. Variation - Coulante–Fleur de farine

d. Variation - Miettes–qui tombent

e. Variation - Canari-qui blacke

f. Variation - Violente–échevelée

g. Variation - La Fée des lilas-voluptueuse

h. Coda générale

No. 4 Scène et final-

a. Entrée de Carabosse

b. Scène mimique de Carabosse

c. Scène mimique de la Fée des lilas

Act I — Les quatre fiancés de la Princesse Aurore

No. 5-a Introduction

No. 5-b Scène des tricoteuses

No. 6 Grande valse villageoise (o) The Garland Waltz)

No. 7 Entrée d'Aurore

No. 8 Grand pas d'action-

a. Grand adage à la rose (Cadenza arpa opening possibly expanded by arpist Albert Heinrich Zabel or Riccardo Drigo)

b. Danse des demoiselles d'honneur et des pages

c. Variation d'Aurore (coda edited by an unknown hand, possibly Riccardo Drigo)

d. Coda

No. 9 Scène et final-

a. Danse d'Aurore avec le fuseau

b. Le charme

c. L'arrivée des lilas

Act II

Scene I — The chasse du Prince Désiré

No. 10-a Entr'acte

No. 10-b Scène de la chasse royale

No. 11 Colin-Maillard

No. 12 Danses demoiselles nobles-

a. Scène

b. Danse des duchesses

c. Danse des baroneses (probably cut by Petipa from original production)

d. Danse des comtesses (probably cut by Petipa from original production)

e. Danse des marquises (probably cut by Petipa from original production)

No. 13 Coda-Farandole

No. 14-a Scène et départ des chassseurs

No. 14-b Entrée de la Fée des lilas

No. 15 Pas d'action-

a. Entrée de l'apparition d'Aurore

b. Grand adage (Cadenza arpa opening possibly expanded by arpist Albert Heinrich Zabel or Riccardo Drigo)

c. Valse des nymphes–Petit allégro coquet

• Interpolation (4 transient compases for the end of No. 15-c composed by Riccardo Drigo that lead to the variation of Brianza)
• Interpolation: Variation Mlle. Brianza (no. 23-b) Variation de la fée-Or of Act III)

d. Variation d'Aurore (cut by Petipa in original production)

e. Petite coda

No. 16 Scène

No. 17 Overview

• Interpolation (3 transient compases for the end of No. 17 composed by Drigo that lead to No. 19, since No. 18 was cut in original assembly)

No. 18 Entr'acte symphonique (only for violin composed by Leopold Auer, cut in original production)

Scene II — Le château de la belle au bois dormant

No. 19 Scène du château de sommeil

No. 20 Scène et final – Le réveil d'Aurore

Act III — Les Noces de Désiré et d'Aurore

No. 21 Marche

No. 22 Grand polonaise dansée

Grand divertissement-

No. 23 Pas de quatre

a. Entrée

b. Variation de la fée-Or (changed by Petipa to Acto II as a variation for Carlotta Brianza in original production)

c. Variation de la fée-Argent (changed by Petipa in original production – Pas de trois pour la Fées d'Or, d'Argent et de Saphir)

d. Variation de la fée-Saphir (cut by Petipa in original production)

e. Variation de la fée-Diamant

f. Coda

• Interpolation: Entrée de chats (an introduction of ten Chaikovski compases for No. 24)

No. 24 Pas de caractère – Le Chat botté et la Chatte blanche

No. 25 Pas de quatre (changed by Petipa in original production – Pas de de deux de l'Oiseau bleu et la Princesse Florine)

a. Entrée

b. Variation de Cendrillon et Prince Fortuné (changed by Petipa in original production – Variation de l'Oiseau bleu)

c. Variation de l'Oiseau bleu la Princesse Florine (changed by Petipa in original production – Variation de la Princesse Florine)

d. Coda

No. 26 Pas de caractère – Chaperon Rouge et le Loup

• Interpolation: Pas de caractère – Cendrillon et Prince Fortuné

No. 27 Pas berrichon – Le Petit Poucet, ses frères et l'Ogre

No. 28 Grand pas de quatre (originally arranged by Petipa as Pas de quatre for Princess Aurora, Prince Désiré and the fairies of gold and sapphire)

a. Entrée (only the first eight compass were preserved)

b. Grand adage

• Interpolation: Danse pour les Fées d'Or et de Saphir in 6/8 (Petipa probably used the music of the Entrée to accompany a dance for the fairies of gold and sapphire)

c. Variation du Prince Désiré

d. Variation d'Aurore — Mlle. Brianza (edited by Riccardo Drigo for original production at the request of Petipa)

e. Coda

No. 29 Sarabande – quadrille pour Turcs, Éthiopiens, Africains et Américains

No. 30-a Coda générale

No. 30-b Apothéose – Apollon in costume of Louis XIV, éclairé par le soleil entouré des fées (music based on March Henri IV)

Versions

Piano arrangements

In 1890, Alexander Siloti was commissioned to arrange this work for piano duet. He refused, but suggested that his then 17-year-old cousin Sergei Rachmaninov would prove more than competent. This offer was accepted, although Siloti supervised the arrangement. Siloti himself arranged the entire score for solo piano.

The wedding of Aurora Diaghilev

In 1922, ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev arranged a 45-minute version of the final act for his Ballets Russes, entitled Aurora's Wedding. This shortened version has been recorded by the director Leopold Stokowski, in one of his last performances, and by Charles Dutoit. The adaptation takes material from the ballet's introductory act I and combines it with most of the last act, as well as other sections. The selections in this version are as follows:

1. Introduction (Prologist)
2. Polacca (Act 3)
3. Pas de six (Propologist)
4. Scene; Danse des Duchesses; Danse des Marquises (Act 2)
5. Farandole; Danse - Tempo di Mazurka (Act 2)
6. Pas de quatre (Act 3)
7. Pas de Character - Chaperone Rouge et le Loup (Act 3)
8. Pas de quatre (Act 3)
9. Coda - the Ivans trois (Act 3)
10. Pas de de deux (Act 3)
11. Finale - Tempo di Mazurka; Apothéose (Act 3)

Trademark controversy

The Walt Disney Company has a trademark application pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, filed on March 13, 2007, for the name "Princess Aurora". This would cover all uses related to recorded and live entertainment on film, television, radio, theatre, computer, internet, news, and photography, except for works of fiction and nonfiction literature. This has caused controversy because "Princess Aurora" it is also the name of the title character in Tchaikovsky's ballet version of the story, from which Disney acquired some of the music for his 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty.

Gallery

• 

  Original cast, 1890

• 

  Carlotta Brianza and Pável Gerdt at Act III, 1890

• 

  Marie Petipa as the fairy of the lilacs and Lyubov Vishnévskaya as an assistant, 1890

• 

  Enrico Cecchetti and Varvara Nikítina as the blue bird and Princess Florine, 1890

• 

  Anna Johannson and two Landscapes, 1892

• 

  Léon Bakst Design for Carabosse, 1921

• 

  Design of Leon Bakst for Chinese Lady, 1921

• 

  Viacheslav Lopatin and Anastasiya Stashkévich as the blue bird and Princess Florine, 2011