BRB's "The Sleeping Beauty"

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Thu Jun 19, 2003 2:31 am

Strong reviews for this revival of Sir Peter Wright's "Sleeping Beauty". Wright has a knack for staging the classics that takes some beating:

Sleeping Beauty
By Stephanie Ferguson for The Guardian

You almost need to wear your sunglasses for this glittering revival of Peter Wright's production for Birmingham Royal Ballet. Nearly 20 years on, it is still breathtaking. Philip Prowse's lavish sets and costumes capture all the baroque opulence of the court of Louis XIV, with obelisks, urns and golden panels Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would be proud of.
This is an epic staging in the imperial Russian tradition. The company is in golden mode. Director David Bintley has honed the dancers, especially the men. With its physical pyrotechnics and bravura choreography, this revival was a ballet-lovers' dream.

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Sleeping Beauty
By Donald Hutera for The Times

IN 1984 Peter Wright first staged his version of The Sleeping Beauty, originally created by Marius Petipa at St Petersburgh’s Mariinsky Theatre in 1890, for what was then Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. Now Birmingham Royal Ballet’s current performances of Wright’s lavish, solidly traditional, fairy-tale ballet continue at the Lowry until Saturday, with additional tour dates in Birmingham and Plymouth sponsored by AquaLibra.

Oiled down to its essence, the work’s dramatic thrust hinges on a grave social error. Somehow the fairy Carabosse (imperious scenery-chewer Marion Tait) has been omitted from the guest list at Princess Aurora’s christening. She slaps a fatal curse on the infant, which the beneficent, Lilac Fairy (Silvia Jimenez), handily converts into mere suspended animation for 100 years.

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Awake to a world of wonders
Ismene Brown reviews The Sleeping Beauty at The Lowry, Salford for The Daily Telegraph

Even with the overflowing cornucopia of dance that Britain can offer, one comes to the prospect of seeing Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty again with the gratitude of a thirsty traveller in a desert. What a masterpiece this is, of theatre, music, dance, visual luxury, humanity and childhood magic. It is a kaleidoscope fashioned by the 19th century's most ingenious master of illusions, and that Birmingham Royal Ballet has taken out its magnificent Peter Wright production this season is a cause of real pleasure.

From the first view of the rich, gold drop-curtain, drawn by a bewigged and frock-coated flunkey with his encrusted candelabra, you are ushered into a world of fantasy that does better in atmosphere than either of the Royal Ballet's two recent productions.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Thu Jun 19, 2003 11:11 pm

Sleeping Beauty @ The Lowry
By Robert Beale for Manchester online

IN other places and other hands, The Sleeping Beauty is (of course) a pantomime. And there is something reassuringly pantomimic about Peter Wright's 1984 production, brought back to us by Birmingham Royal Ballet - its first time at The Lowry - this week.

The sets are solid and splendid, the costumes sumptuous and scintillating; there are flashes and bangs, puffs of smoke and follow-spots.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sun Jun 22, 2003 5:12 am

The Sleeping Beauty
By Jann Parry in The Observer

The Sleeping Beauty has iconic status in the Royal Ballet's history. Ninette de Valois, like Diaghilev before her, regarded The Sleeping Beauty as the gauge of technical and moral maturity. Her young company first passed the test in 1939, and has been striving to do the ballet full justice ever since.

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Joanne · **Posted:** Thu Jul 03, 2003 2:00 am

Review from The Independent.

Quote:

Comparisons are inevitable when Birmingham Royal Ballet revives its production of The Sleeping Beauty so soon after the Covent Garden Royal Ballet presented its new version, and BRB comes off the better. Peter Wright's Birmingham staging, like Makarova's in London, introduces some alterations, but his fit more convincingly into the original context. Perhaps he is too eager to increase the amount of male dancing; but his one unforgivable fault is the ghastly shower of gold confetti at the end, which blocks the view and is unutterably vulgar, and hence totally out of place in this grandest of historic ballets.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:59 am

STAGE GLORY FOR DANCE STUDENTS
By ROB PREECE for the Evening Herald (Plymouth, UK)

Two students from a Plymouth dance school have shared the limelight with visiting ballet stars at the Theatre Royal. Elysia Hayman-Finch, 16, and Sarahjane Funnell, 17, played ladies-in-waiting in the Birmingham Royal Ballet production of The Sleeping Beauty.

The pair are both members of the Italia Conti Associate School, based at St Dunstan's Abbey School.

Sue Caridia, artistic director at Italia Conti, said: "It's very exciting for the school.

"Both these girls worked very hard in their classes and deserved this wonderful opportunity.

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BRB's "The Sleeping Beauty"

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