American Ballet Theatre's new Sleeping Beauty

(Final curtain at ABT's new Sleeping Beauty, on opening night in Orange County.)

American Ballet Theatre's new Sleeping Beauty opened in Orange County last night, and it was an all around pretty enjoyable evening. The production does the job at providing a decent of staging of Sleeping Beauty for the company, which the company has not done in full length for a very long time. As a balletomane, I could nitpick a lot of it - and realistically, there are better productions of The Sleeping Beauty out there - but really, Tuesday's performance was a good show made bright by the company's dancing.

The Sleeping Beauty itself tends to make me happy anyway. It's the classic of classic ballets: Tchaikovsky's music is gloriously grand, dramatic, and colorful, and the original structure and form of Marius Petipa's choreography is harmonious and ordered. Much of classical ballet emanates from Petipa's choreography, and Sleeping Beauty is the ultimate thesis statement for the art form.

The ABT production works where it needs to work: all the famous classical steps are there, augmented by some extra dancing for the men, and a few variances in the choreography depending on which Sleeping Beauty tradition you come from (more on that later). The sets and costumes were attractive, though verging on cartoonish. For the purposes of the evening, though, they gave a handsome frame to the proceedings. And that dancing - Gillian Murphy's wonderful Aurora was a highpoint of the evening.

I was prepared for the worst going into the show last night, since reports from the New York premiere were not good. Staged by company artistic director Kevin McKenzie, former prima ballerina Gelsey Kirland and her husband, theatre director Michael Chernov, the production apparently aims to clarify and enhance the ballet's story elements, according to many newspaper interviews given before the premiere. Reviews of the production, however, sad said the production was instead over stuffed with concepts and ideas. Stage effects (such as fairies flying on wires) came off awkwardly, and scenes became overextended and boring. Coming to Orange County, things were said to have changed - articles appearing this week in the LA Times and OC Register said that the creative team had significantly tinkered the production, shaving running time, cutting elements that didnt work and retech-ing awkward stage effects.

After all the hubbub, what showed up on stage in Orange County last night was actually a fairly straightforward production. All the major parts of the ballet - Prologue fairies, Aurora's dancing, etc. - were where they were supposed to be, presented pretty standardly with only minor deviations. Evidently, much of the extraneous stuff had been shaved away: the Act 2 hunt scene is much shorter than it apparently was in New York - Kirkland, in the LA Times article, said 9 minutes were cut here. All that happens is the Prince falls asleep to the music of the violin solo (an entr'acte Tchaikovsky composed for a bit later in the act, but usually cut from most SB productions), the prologue fairies wiz by with stage smoke, Aurora - sleeping - glides across the stage in a boat, and the prince wakes up and dances around frantically. In other parts of the ballet, fairies no longer fly on wires. The production still contains changes to the basic choreography and story, and some work really well and while others less so.

Fortunately the more questionable changes are minor enough that one can choose to ignore them for the brief moments that they appear. For example, the synopsis written in the program has at the end of Act 1, Aurora's parents being forced to leave the Kingdom so that Aurora can 'fulfill her destiny' - a rather odd and unnecessary addition to the usual story, where everyone just goes to sleep with Aurora. On stage in the new ABT production, the only indication that all this complicated stuff is going on is that the King and Queen are on the wrong side of the drop cloth that closes at the end of Act 1 - easy enough to ignore if you don't want to be bothered with this plot complication. At this point in the normal ballet, the King and Queen cease to have much of a presence anyway, so their disappearance from the rest of the ABT production is relatively (repeat, relatively) unnoticeable.

CHOREOGRAPHY

The choreography in this production is a well-chosen combination of Western and Soviet traditions in the Sleeping Beauty. (Both traditions are based on the original choreography set out in 1890 by Petipa, but at some point after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, major variances appeared: Nicolai Segeyev fled Russia and went West with notebooks containing notation of Petipa's choreography, which became the basis for the Western productions, namely the Ballet Russes and Royal Ballet productions. In Soviet Russia at the Kirov Ballet, Konstantin Sergeyev staged a production in 1952, where major sections like The Rose Adagio, etc. remained the same, but other sections were significantly revised and much of the mime was deleted. Scholars consider the Western productions to be closer to Petipa's original text, but both versions are beloved - in particular the Soviet version is very well loved by Russian trained dancers.)

A note in the program says that the choreography for this ABT production was "inspired by Konstantin Sergeyv's 1952 production." On stage, the good stuff from the Konstantin Sergeyev text is kept, but the less favorable dancing has been replaced with choreography from the Western tradition. Case in point, the Prologue fairy dances. A corps of fairies enters at the beginning of the music, just like in the Soviet productions, but the good fairies and the Lilac fairy enter on their intended musical cues, just like in Western productions (it has always been befuddling to me why the Soviet production has the fairies enter at random parts in the music). And the mime is also back in the ABT production, much to my delight.

New choreography that isn't Soviet or Western, was added by Kirkland, McKenzie and Chernov (the program is not specific as to who does what), and it mostly fits into the running of things. I like that the Prologue fairies keep reappearing throughout the ballet, so that their dramatic function is clarified. They appear in Act 2, leading the prince to his vision of Aurora, and then they also show up again briefly in Act 3 to celebrate Aurora's wedding. The Act 1 Waltz was blander than bland, but I haven't seen a production where it hasn't been (how sad, considering the music is so famous), but it wasn't a big loss to me.

Act 3 has been significantly truncated - the Jewel Fairies, the White Cat pas de deux and the Red Riding Hood bit are all cut, leaving only a newly choreographed interlude for the Prologue fairies, the Bluebird Pas de Deux, and the Grand Pas de Deux. I didn't mind these cuts as much as others did - I always skip over the cut parts on DVD and twiddle my thumbs in live performances anyway. Those parts are nice to have in a big, well-done production, but for a sleek, swift one like ABT's I don't mind the cut.

Otherwise, much of the "famous" choreography remains untouched - the Rose Adagio, Grand Pas de Deux and Bluebird Pas de Deux are all the classic choreography. The Act 2 Vision Scene uses the Soviet choreography, including for Aurora's vision variation.

SETS, EFFECTS & COSTUMES

(The Act 1 Waltz and set, photo by Gene Schiavone.)

The scenery was, well, large. It was a spectacle to look at, particularly the large castle for Act 1, though the color palette had much of the production dangerously straddling the line between colorful and garish. The setting was more cartoonish than opulent, but it still framed the stage handsomely.

The special effects were a lot of fun to watch - in the Prologue, Carabosse arrives in a bright pyrotechnic rocket that zips down from the flies, causing a huge burst of stage fog from which Carabosse magically appears on stage. She disappears after casting her spell with another pyro rocket ride away.

The only effect that didn't seem to work so well last night was the boat in Act 2. It was a radio-controlled barge thing that first, totes Aurora sleeping across the stage in the Prince's vision, then later, refitted with a giant sail, transports the Prince and Lilac across the river to Aurora's castle. Probably due to opening night tech issues, it skittered and wobbled a few times, making audience members laugh. Later, the scene change from the forest to the awakening was visually seamless, but sounded harrowing - there was lots of alaming thudding and slamming going on behind the thin drop cloth, but I have to assume everything turned out okay when the lights came up and the giant castle set was where it was supposed to be. A case of the opening night gremlins.

Costumes were the major disappointment of this production. Many of them looked like bland, Wal-Mart Halloween costumes, with was lots of baggy, loose cloth and bland colors all over the place. The main costumes (Aurora, Prince and Lilac Fairy) were OK, which makes the costuming almost forgiveable, but what a disappointment with this part of the production.

PERFORMANCES

Sleeping Beauty is a ballerina's ballet, and as Aurora, Gillian Murphy's total command of her technique made the challenges of the role look easy. The famous balances of the Rose Adagio were rock solid. It's interesting to watch her dance though: she's a very neoclassical dancer, with nimble, quicksilver feet and dancing defined by an impetus to move - and move fast. So her Aurora was particularly good at turning... and those jumps! In the Act 1 coda, she bounded across the stage doing these quick split jumps, looking more like she was bouncing across on a trampoline than jumping upwards. Characterization could have been more nuanced, but she did it fine, portrayed Aurora's young girlishness by just dancing with an animated bounce, and subduing herself in the vision and Grand pas de deux.

Ethan Stiefel was a strapping Prince, really wowing in the new designed-for-showing-off Prince choreography. As the Lilac Fairy, Stella Abrera's dancing was expansive and gorgeous, but she needed more warmth and generosity to properly counterbalance Gelsey Kirkland's delightfully maniacal Carabosse. Sascha Radetsky was a Bluebird in Act 3 that flew well, though his landings were a bit stiff. Sarah Lane was the girl to watch out for in Bluebird Pas de Deux - she's a very promising young dancer who was just recently promoted to soloist, and was surprise cast as Aurora in this upcoming Sunday's performance, replacing an injured Xiomara Reyes. In Bluebird, it was evident that she already carries herself as a ballerina, and it was a wonderfully clean, classical reading of the role. I couldn't tell whether she can do faster, more complicated steps, but we'll see when she does Aurora on Sunday.

Musically, the score was given a great playing by the Pacific Symphony, under the baton of Ormsby Wilkins. The sound was warm, rich and elegant, and it was wonderful to hear the score played by a really full orchestra.

I'm going to try and catch a few more performances of Sleeping Beauty as the run progresses. The casting looks pretty phenomenal, and its a great chance to look at the company's dancers at all levels.

Meanwhile, I have this to drive through out of downtown Los Angeles on the way to Orange County in the evenings:


But the driving was worth it, and I did get to meet the Southern California part of the wonderful dance blog, TheWinger.com - Susan Kim! It was great meeting her, and it's fun running into the many different people who regularly go to ballet in the LA area.