The Sleeping Beauty, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome, 21 February 2024. Runs until 02 March 2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“A must see for lovers of Classical Ballet.”

Taken for what it is and what it sets out to be, this production cannot be faulted. Adopting a traditional, highly conventional approach to Classical Ballet, the show dazzles from the start. The set is deceptively simple, yet luxurious. Costumes are lavish and stylish - exactly what might be called for when visiting the court of a fairytale princess.

Most of the ballet’s scenes represent celebratory situations. The prologue is the christening of Princess Aurora, The Sleeping Beauty. The earlier part of this, true to the conventions of classical ballet, is basically a succession of elaborate and highly stylised dance numbers. The quality of the dancing here is exceptional. The solo dancers deport themselves with an elegance, precision and seeming effortlessness that is quite breathtaking. Collectively, there is a uniformity of timing and movement that one rarely sees on the dance stage.

Celebrations are interrupted with the arrival of the Evil Fairy, Carabosse . Daria Stanciulescu, dancing the role, is wonderfully over-the -top as she places her curse on the young princess with imperious menace. The scene ends with much dramatic wringing of hands.

Act I, another party, for Princes Aurora’s birthday. Yu Kurihara dances this role to absolute perfection. Every movement is precisely placed and delivered with poise, grace and a wonderful sense of coy innocence. Very much the focus of the scene, she manages to captivate throughout. Again, the scene ends with drama: Carabosse intervenes. Princess Aurora pricks her finger, and the curse takes effect. So far, so captivating.

What follows is, from a dramatic perspective, not quite so convincing. We are introduced to Prince Florimund. Lachlan Monaghan strikes an impressive and commanding figure in the role, and we would like to get to know more about him. But instead of treating us with the muscular and powerfully choreographed movement we might expect, he just seems to run around a lot. Disappointing. This Act never really catches fire and, when the two romantic leads are finally united, and the Princess is awakened with a kiss, rather than the grand pas de deux which seems to be called for, the curtain falls, leaving us to wait until the final Act for our moment of emotional catharsis.

The closing Act, the wedding, finally brings this great expression of love. And here, perhaps, convention becomes a problem. The requirement for the choreography of the lead dancers to be the most exquisitely shaped, the most poised, and perhaps the most gymnastically demanding, results in something rather static. One dificult, paused effect follows another, so that any sense of momentum and flow is constantly interrupted. As a result, we don’t get the big emotional outpouring that Tchaikovsky’s ravishing music - played so passionately and powerfully in the pit by conductor Philip Ellis and his orchestra - so obviously calls for.

In conclusion, if you go to the ballet for spectacle and the pure abstract beauty of dance, this is very much the show for you. If your tastes call for a more dramatically and emotionally integrated dance experience, it might not tick all your boxes. That said, it is undeniably a lavish experience.

Creatives Music – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Choreography – Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, Peter Wright Production – Peter Wright Designer – Philip Prowse

Lighting - Mark Jonathan

Conductor – Philip Ellis

The Company: https://www.brb.org.uk/the-company/dancers-and-ballet-staff