The Sleeping Beauty, Royal Opera House
Simply Ballroom, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
by ZOE ANDERSON for the Independent
published: November 1, 2006

Watching the Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty, I don't know whether to praise or to carp. Here is one of the glories of the ballet repertory, with marvellous dancing from the principals. How can you not be happy? But, seeing a production that should be so much better, how can you not complain?

Sleeping Beauty
by JUDITH MACKRELL for the Guardian
published: November 3, 2006

Ballerinas far more senior than Lauren Cuthbertson have stumbled over the brutally exposing balances of its opening Rose Adagio.
But one reason why Cuthbertson has been given Aurora is that she is a game dancer, as well as a very promising one. So if she did teeter through her first balances, she found her feet to sketch out one of the most independent readings of Aurora I have seen.

Mmm..., Barbican, London
Up from the Waste, Soho Theatre, London
The Sleeping Beauty, Royal Opera House, London
by JENNY GILBERT for the Independent
published: November 5, 2006

The obvious fact of the matter is that what the majority of us didn't see, the heart won't grieve over. This Beauty is magnificent, the company ensemble has never been stronger, and the present extended run offers a choice of no fewer than eight Auroras. Go revel.

Radiant Rojo brings fairytale alive

Telegraph.com.uk 13/11/2006

Sarah Crompton reviews The Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden

Darcey Bussell once told me that if she was walking round a supermarket and Tchaikovsky's Rose Adagio started to play over the sound system, her stomach would still turn over at the prospect of having to dance it.

Bussell's Aurora days are behind her, but for any ballerina that variation, mainly on one leg, with four princes in support, remains the ultimate challenge. Not only is it fiendishly difficult technically, but you have to pull off its devilish balances and jumps while looking like a radiant 16-year-old, trembling on the brink of life.

advertisementOn Thursday, the Royal Ballet's Tamara Rojo was the dancer undergoing Petipa's most stringent examination, but there was no glimpse of strain. She perched on one beautifully arched foot like some iridescent bird, her grave, dark-eyed face full of anticipation as she launched herself on the world.

The Royal Ballet is riding high again
by JENNY GILBERT for the Independent
published: December 10, 2006

What sadist of a choreographer asks a girl to centre herself within a minute of rushing on stage, perch on the same toe for an age without wobbling, while alternating her meagre thread of support from four boys in turn? Oh yes, and then go on to dance the longest solo of the 19th century. Sit too close to the stage and the terror in a first-timer's eyes will haunt you for weeks. Last Monday was 21-year-old Lauren Cuthbertson's second showing, and though fear clung like fog to the opening sequence, her subsequent triumph quickly erased the memory of it. It was like watching ice melt into a bubbling spring.

The Classical Test for a City Ballet Star Who Flew
by ROSLYN SULCAS for the New York Times
published: December 17, 2006

FAST. Daring. Sleek. A quintessential Balanchine dancer. For most of Alexandra Ansanelli’s nine-year career with the New York City Ballet, she treasured those frequent descriptions. But they were not what she wanted to hear after her debut with Britain’s Royal Ballet in late October as Princess Aurora in “The Sleeping Beauty.”

“I wanted to show myself and the ballet world that I was capable of making the transition from Balanchine to the classical style,” she said the day after her debut. For Ms. Ansanelli, who is 25 and was scheduled to dance her last Aurora of the season Saturday, the role was her first major test at her new company, which — in a surprise move — she joined last year.