BRB, The Sleeping Beauty Review ★★★★★

The Sleeping Beauty is one of the three great Tchaikovsky classic ballets (along with Swan Lake and The Nutcracker); and Sir Peter Wright’s production, perhaps closer than any other to Petipa’s 1890 Russian original, was created for what was soon to become Birmingham Royal Ballet exactly 40 years ago. To mark the anniversary, BRB is touring the ballet that its director, Carlos Acosta, describes as ‘a jewel in the crown of our classical repertoire’.

We know the story: cursed by the evil fairy Carabosse to prick her finger and die on her 16th birthday, the princess Aurora is saved by the good Lilac Fairy, who fates her instead to sleep for 100 years until awakened by a kiss from a besotted prince. Good defeats evil, and Act III brings the happy couple’s lavish wedding celebrations.

There’s much to admire in this production, not least the commitment of the entire cast; on opening night at Sadler’s Wells the lead couple of Aurora and Prince Florimund was danced with tremendous skill and mutual chemistry by first soloist Yu Kurihara and principal Lachlan Monaghan.

Delicate but possessed of a strong technique, Kurihara enchanted from the moment she bourréed onto the stage for her birthday party as happy, carefree 16-year old. Occasional nervousness notwithstanding, she sailed through the choreography with its multiple partnering and tricky balances with aplomb, her step definition crisp and her lines impeccably classic; and she negotiated the transition from the boisterous adolescent of Act I to the poised regal bride of Act III with assurance.

The Sleeping Beauty offers little to its lead male character, Prince Florimund. We first see him in Act II, miming sadness and foreboding; he spends most of the vision scene, where the Lilac Fairy shows him Aurora, chasing after the elusive princess; and finally comes into his own in the Grand Pas of Act III. Lachlan Monaghan handled the plentiful mime with clarity, and danced the Grand Pas with vigour and elegance, a safe and attentive partner to Kurihara, their fish dives especially exciting.

I have a few quibbles. For the Prologue and Act I, designer Philip Browse chose forbidding dark, mostly unadorned sets and subdued colours for the elaborate costumes, making it all look a little dusty and old-fashioned; the flat lighting doesn’t help. By contrast, in Act III the brightly lit palace ballroom with its vast chandelier looks more spacious, bright pinks and gold stand out in the ensemble costumes, and the overall feel is that of a welcome rebirth.

The six fairies who bestow their diverse gifts on baby Aurora are dressed uniformly in drab greenish costumes; and the Lilac Fairy, a full dancing role in other productions, is instead a non-dancing figure dressed in a bleached lilac gown, a role in which Ellis Small stood out for the clarity of her mime.

Eilis Small as the Lilac Fairy in BRB's The Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Carabosse is always the fun role, and Daria Stanciulescu made the most of it, from the moment she burst onto the stage on a chair raised aloft by her six attendants, her black gown sparkling, her laughter wide with malice, until the humiliation of her final confrontation with the Lilac Fairy.

Daria Stanciulescu as Carabosse in BRB's The Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Tchaikovsky's glorious score was played live by a sparkling Royal Ballet Sinfonia, under Philip Ellis.