The Sleeping Beauty

“Sleeping Beauty” is regarded as the masterpiece of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Ballet director Reginaldo Oliveira is fascinated not only by the irresistibly beautiful ballet music and the enchanting fairy-tale motifs, but also by the archetypal questions of good and evil, rejection and the resulting desire for revenge that this tale raises.

Aurora’s parents had to wait a very long time for their first child and relied on the help of fairies to fulfill their wish. Perhaps for that reason, their greatest goal is to protect their daughter from harm. And they almost succeed—except for one fairy they forgot to invite to the christening. And that is when disaster takes its course. The enraged fairy curses Aurora: she shall die at the age of 15. The curse cannot be undone, only softened by another fairy into a hundred-year sleep. Thus Aurora becomes the sleeping beauty who must be awakened after 100 years by a courageous prince.

The source of the ballet, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods,” an art fairy tale by French author Charles Perrault, also displays a good measure of humor. For example, when the prince notices that Sleeping Beauty’s dress after a hundred years reminds him of his grandmother. Or when Sleeping Beauty sees her prince and the first thing she says is: “You took quite a long time to get here!”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) considered “Sleeping Beauty” his finest ballet. At its premiere in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, an astonishing 155 performers stood on stage, including 59 solo dancers. Within just two years, there were 50 performances in St. Petersburg alone, and the work has remained a staple of the ballet repertoire to this day.

Following the double bill “Iolanta / The Nutcracker,” chief choreographer Oliveira devoted himself once again to one of Tchaikovsky’s great ballet scores in the 2023/24 season with his reinterpretation of this well-known fairy tale. He was supported by set designer Matthias Kronfuss and costume designer Judith Adam. The newly cast revival of this production will be conducted this season by Tobias Meichsner, who will lead the Mozarteum Orchestra.

“It is especially for these central scenes that Oliveira has developed an original modern ballet idiom, set against a background of classical pointe work, which unfolds expressive phrases of movement to match Tchaikovsky’s score. The meticulously choreographed solo performances, pas de deux and group sequences blend together and are ideally tailored to the three solo dancers.”                                                                                                                                                                                                              Die Deutsche Bühne

We offer introductory talks 45 and 30 minutes ahead of each performance.

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