View from the Green Room: Sell-out 'Sleeping Beauty' a triumph
The Ukrainian Ballet of Peace performed Sleeping Beauty at the Theatre Royal.
I had run out of superlatives long before Act 1 finished to describe this stunning performance. Breathtaking… athletic… colourful… dramatic… professional… classy… superb.
“It’s just wonderful,” an audience member said at the interval, “costumes, make-up, sets, story and the dancing… oh the dancing… wow… just wow!” I’m not surprised. The Ukrainian Peace Ballet certainly knows their way around this production. This is as good as it gets in dance. The huge Ukrainian audience is well informed about ballet and their enthusiasm and applause for this production says it all.
It’s rare to see ballet of such quality in the Royal and it’s great to see the ballet schools in the huge house.
The set is vintage stuff that brings me back to the old world of competing operetta societies in the old Waterford Festival of Light Opera with painted backdrops and side tabs to set palace and lakeside scenes. It’s minimalist, scene-setting stuff that travels well and, by and large, facilitates a large corps de ballet.
It has often been said that there really is no story to speak of in this fairy tale. A princess is born, has a birthday party, falls asleep for 100 years, along with the entire royal household, wakes up when kissed by a prince, has another party and lives happily ever after with a prince who is a century younger. What more could you ask for?
However, ballet brings drama and characterisation through gesture and attitude.
The Lilac Fairy is everywhere and her dancing is a tour de force of colour, character and storyline. And when villainess Carabosse sweeps in, teeth flashing, imperious foot stamping with eyes that would halt a crocodile in full pursuit, the drama of Sleeping Beauty flashes into action. And yet… just maybe… there’s just that hint of humanity, a sense that Carabosse has some justification to feel spurned.
Yet every performance of The Sleeping Beauty will always be ultimately judged on its leading couple.
Sadly, in the absence of a programme, I’m not in a position to name the dancers. Nevertheless Aurora’s journey is innocently joyful in the posed pictures of the Rose Adagio, poetic and mysterious in the vision scene and as happy as the day is long in the wedding pas de deux.
The Prince is her perfect match. He only appears in Act 2, but from that moment on his presence deepens the ballet, and their partnership is a joy. Their dancing is full of truth and a deep understanding of the meaning of fairytale dance. The union of Prince and Princess is just perfect and their love a rare thing of beauty.
The emotional finale to the Ukrainian company is very moving. At the finale of this superb performance of Swan Lake, the Ukrainian national flag was brought onto the stage and the Ukrainian National Anthem was sung with a passion that I have never heard for any anthem before. Anywhere.
The stage and audience was in tears as audience members embraced and applauded for almost 10 minutes. It was a special privilege to be here to share in the groundswell of good will and pride that Irish people feel toward their new neighbours.
