Beauty still a timeless classic
Audiences will have a chance to relive the magic of their favourite childhood stories in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s version of The Sleeping Beauty. The show features a wide range of characters from Little Red Riding Hood to Puss in Boots, in addition to Princess Aurora, who is Sleeping Beauty herself.
“It’s a favourite,” said Andre Lewis, the artistic director of the RWB, of the ballet.
Lewis always tries to include at least one classical ballet, like The Sleeping Beauty, every season.
The Sleeping Beauty is a romantic story ballet that tells the tale of delicate Princess Aurora, who is doomed by wicked fairy Carabosse to prick her finger on a spindle on her 16th birthday and then fall asleep for 100 years until she is awoken by Prince Désiré’s kiss.
“It’s a wonderful introduction to a ballet for those who have never been to one before,” said Lewis. “It’s such a familiar story.”
Within the ballet, Puss in Boots dukes it out with the White Cat and Little Red Riding Hood takes on the wolf.
Their sparring with each other is meant to mirror in microcosm the good-versusevil theme that underpins the ballet.
The Sleeping Beauty ballet is 123 years old and premiered in 1890 in St. Petersburg. The music for the ballet was written by Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It was the second of only three ballets that he would write in his lifetime.
The choreography the RWB dancers will be doing is equally as old and was put together by Marius Petipa of the Imperial Ballet (today known as the Mariinsky Ballet) who gave Tchaikovsky a very detailed list of instructions about his musical requirements for the ballet.
“It’s artistically and physically amazing to see the dancers move through the choreography to the music,” said Lewis, who joined the RWB as a dancer in 1975 and stepped into the role as artistic director in 1996.
One of the more interesting characters in the show is the evil Carabosse, portrayed by a sneering Amar Dhaliwal (Thiago Dos Santos, in alternating shows) en travesti.
Arriving on a chariot, flanked by leaping minions, right out of hell, she immediately makes it clear that this is no fairy to tangle with as she places her curse on the young princess.
“It’s a beautiful set,” said Lewis.
The RWB set is modelled after the time the ballet takes place in.
It takes the RWB six weeks to prepare a ballet to go before an audience.
The RWB, which has been a touring company since the 1940s, previously did The Sleeping Beauty in 2002.