Christopher Wheeldon's "Sleeping Beauty" is undoubtedly the company's most eagerly anticipated premiere in recent years and will be the holiday ballet (no Nuts this year)

Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon after Petipa
Sets and costumes: Jérôme Kaplan
Lighting design: Mary Louise Geiger
Music: Tchaikovsky (of course!)

Exact casting is yet to be announced, but the Auroras and Desires have been named. In order of mention (and probably partnering)

Aurora: Gudrun Bojesen, Kizzy Matiakis, Caroline Cavallo, Jodie Thomas, Susanne Grinder, Amy Watson
Desire: Alban Lendorf, Andrew Bowman, Ulrik Birkkjær, Thomas Lund, Marcin Kupinski, Gregory Dean

This may seem like a lot of casts, but the company is performing the ballet 23 (!!) times between November 26 and December 19.

There is a great preview video of Sleeping Beauty, complete with wonderful footage of Alban Lendorf , glimpses of the sumptuous costumes and very impressive one handed tosses to swan dives!:
http://video.kglteater.dk/video/889493/tornerose-2010

Sofie Rask Andsersen, the company dramaturg, has written a blog which gives previews of sets and costumes, both of which look glorious:
Costumes: http://www.terpsichore.dk/magasinet.php ... &year=2010
Sets: http://www.terpsichore.dk/magasinet.php ... &year=2010

I will be very interested to see the reviews on this ballet - were I not so busy with work, I would surely be asking Santa Claus for an early present of tickets to this ballet and hopping on the next flight to Copenhagen.

These days to get a Wheeldon ballet for your company is a sign of status, to have a whole new full-length choreographed on your company by Wheeldon is a major accomplishment. And this could be a defining moment for Hübbe's young directorship - the company needs a ballet that can draw in the audiences, and this could be it.

Sleeping Beauty will be performed at the Royal Theatre, which is the perfect setting for such a ballet, and it looks like Wheeldon has been given free hand in his casting. Not to mention that at 23 performances, NYCB's Nutcracker aside, the ballet will be getting more performances in one season than any other full length (any other ballet?) at any other company in the world. What a great chance for a choreographer to try out multiple casts and have the chance to see & continue to have a ballet grow.

I suspect the intended casts are in the order announced on the website, and I think Alban Lendorf and Gudrun Bojesen will be the ones to watch. Lendorf, despite not being the most ideal in physique, is the newest star of the company, and one of the most impressive male talents since Lund and Blangstrup joined the company.

The glimpses of costumes and sets in the blogs and video suggest at a very sumptuous setting - this will be a ballet to watch!

Kate

This will be interesting to see
I´m going to see it on Dec 3rd.

A late-arriving preview in the Copenhagen Post (in English).

Copenhagen Post