ABT's new Sleeping Beauty

This past week, ABT brought a brand new Sleeping Beauty to Orange County, where it premiered. Alexei Ratmansky was the brains behind the new creation, although it might not be accurate to say he was the choreographer. Instead of coming up with brand new choreography, Ratmansky chose to try and recreate as much of the original 1890 Petipa production as he was able to piece together through annotated notebooks from the early 1900s. The costumes were inspired by Leon Bakst's style for the Ballet Russe from the 1920s.

I went to see the Sunday matinee with Hee Seo as Beauty, Cory Stearns as Prince Desire and Marcello Gomes in character form as Carrabosse. One of the most readily apparent differences in this choreography compared to what we are used to seeing in classical ballet is the moderated movements. Passe turns and pirouettes are at the calf or lower, rather than pulled up as high as possible, chaine turns are on demi-pointe rather than full pointe. Jumps are lower to the ground. Arms are also held low. Movements are much slower and more fluid. Pirouettes are landed down on flat rather than completed on pointe or demi with the leg held at passe so that the dancer seems to almost fall off in the middle of the turn. While some of these changes were confusing (and looked odd), there were also quite a lot of additional flourishes in between steps that added interest to things like pique turns (almost like an ornament in music). Overall, I felt the change in form and pacing made for a more fluid dancing style. The company did a fantastic job overall with their unity, particularly with the 80 dancer Garland Dance. I felt that Hee Seo was not quite sure of herself at the beginning but became much stronger by the end. I loved her port de bras, so expressive. There is not much for the Prince to do (which is a shame with such great male dancers in the company), however his solo in the Grand Pas includes assembles and brises which Stearns peformed very cleanly and beautifully. Our Bluebird had a wonderful light and fluid jump that made it look like he was truly flying, but in an elegant manner, not frantic.

The costumes were spectacular. Bright contrasting colours, sparkle on almost every possible surface, plus embroidery, or laser cut patterns, or pleating added for texture and movement. Hats and wigs are in abundance. I'm not a huge fan of wigs, although these were at least more sedate, compared to the Bolshoi ones that I've seen in their video taped version. There were some wonderful drops used in changes of scene, like the dropping wisteria petals as the castle is put to sleep, and the lacy forest branches when the Prince is led by Lilac Fairy to the castle to wake the princess. Lighting was used to wonderful effect to portray the change from the dusty gloomy sleeping castle to the bright warm light after the awakening kiss.

This production has a huge cast of children and the ones who performed on Sunday were wonderful. Very professional and polished.

It was truly a treat to see this production during its premier. We so seldom get that opportunity here on the West Coast.