The Sleeping Beauty ballet. Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a libretto by Marius Petipa and Ivan Vsevolozskij. In 2019, choreography by Rudolf Nureyev is revived by Florence Clerc with the Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Stars Polina Semionova (Princess Aurora), Timofej Andrijashenko (Prince Désiré), Alessandro Grillo (King Florestan XXIV), Marta Romagna (The Queen), Riccardo Massimi (Catalabutte), Emanuela Montanari (The Lilac Fairy), Beatrice Carbone (Carabosse), Deborah Gismondi (The Countess), Giuseppe Conte (The Duke), Federico Fresi (Puss in Boots), Antonella Albano (The White Cat), Claudio Coviello (Blue Bird), Vittoria Valerio (Princess Florine); Martina Arduino, Alessandra Vassalo, Gaia Andreanò, Caterina Bianchi, Agnese Di Clemente, Maria Celeste Losa, and Nicoletta Manni (Seven Fairies); Gabriele Corrado, Christian Fagetti, Andrea Risso, Andrea Crescenzi, Mattia Semperboni, Emanuele Cazzato, and Walter Madau (Seven Knights); Marco Agostino, Gioacchino Starace, Edoardo Caporaletti, and Nicola Del Freo (Four Princes); Vittoria Valerio, Alessandra Vassallo, Gaia Andreanò, Christelle Cennerelli, Marta Gerani, Caterina Bianchi, Alessia Auriemma, and Agnese Di Clemente (Princess’s Friends), as well as Virna Toppi, Nicola De Freo, Alessandra Vassallo, Giaia Andreanò, and Caterina Bianchi (Pas de cinq). Felix Korobov conducts the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala. Set and costume design by Franca Squarciapino; lighting design by Marco Filibeck. Directed for TV by Arnalda Canali. Released 2020, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A
Is it possible to put too much dancing on the stage to the music of Tchaikovsky’s greatest ballet score, The Sleeping Beauty? With 146 minutes of actual dancing, this production is 18 minutes longer than the magnificent Bolshoi Sleeping Beauty. It packs in more dancing time than any of Nureyev’s other ballets in Blu-ray and is longer even than the legendary Raymonda Blu-ray ballet disc (also from La Scala). The stage stays lively with dancers performing in an astonishing number of complicated formations. And Nureyev wrote the Prince Désiré part to show off his own prowess as the greatest male dancer ever. So what chance does a mere mortal like Andrijashenko have when he gets this role? Is all this just too much for a story about a girl who gets to marry a prince when she is 116 years old? Keep these questions in mind as we enjoy some beautiful screenshots.
We start with a full platoon of fairies, their knights, and junior fairies. Was Nureyev a soldier at some point in his career?
The fairies and their retinues go through numerous formations:
On the left below is Beatrice Carbone as Carabosse, the evil fairy. On the right is the hapless master of ceremonies, Catalabutte, played by Riccardo Massimi, pleading for the lives of the peasant women who were tricked by Carabosse into using knitting needles (that had been forbidden by the King):
Princess Aurora is now 16, and she gets a big birthday party:
All Aurora’s friends show off their numerous dance formations and steps:
The proud parents remind Aurora that she has to take a few moments to pick a husband from 4 worthy suitors:
Aurora has fun dancing with all the suitors until she pricks her finger on a rose she got from one of them. Carabosse is ecstatic when she sees her curse coming true. But the Lilac Fairy intervenes and rules that Aurora will not die but only take a nap for 100 years:
100 years has passed and we meet Timofej Andrijashenko as the sensitive Prince Désiré. In long passages of great psychological depth, we see how lonesome he is:
There follows the long dream scene in which the Lilac Fairy introduces Désiré to Aurora in his imagination:
Everything is grand and delicate in equal measure:
I wonder how many days it takes for Andrijashenko to recover from all this:
Finally, the Prince gets to rest a bit in a boat ride before planting that all-important kiss:
With the kiss, the Prince claims his bride. Soon the wedding follows:
There are so many characters credited in this title! Only an expert could ID them. I think maybe the shot below includes the Duke , a Countess, and some of the stars in the Pas de Cinq. Of course, Puss in Boots, the White Cat, the Blue Bird, and Princess Florine also appear:
And the rest of our screenshots are from the Grand Pas de Deux of Aurora and the Prince:
In 2021, this is the most elaborate and impressive of all the 5 classical productions we have now of The Sleeping Beauty in Blu-ray. It’s the product of both the greatest choreographer and the greatest dancer/choreographer in the history of dance. This production puts the Ballet Company of Teatro alla Scala squarely in that super-elite group of ballet companies in the world that you can count on one hand.
PQ and colors look good most of the time. But there are some pesky issues. I kept thinking that the SQ of the recording of the orchestra was somehow a bit weak at times. I also ran the numbers on a Wonk Worksheet to check on video content. The pace is a bit anemic at only 9 seconds per clip on average. And only 56% of the clips show the whole bodies of the dancers. Finally, there is too much panning , which causes temporary motion blur. Arnalda Canali managed to get a lot of fantastically beautiful images in her video file. But she fell victim of trying too hard! Why break up this beautiful show into 973 little video segments when 600 or even 450 segments would have been easier to shoot and result in an elegant file that would be easier to watch? The old DVD-era habits do not die easily, and we have to diagnose the dread disease of DVD-itis. So we knock the grade down from A+ to a B+. But then we bump the grade up to an A on account of the all the wonderful formations created by Nureyev in this show.
Here’s a trailer from C Major:
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