sleeping beauty
The Vienna State Ballet is part of the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Volksoper
sleeping beauty Ballet in one Prologue & three Acts Music The Sleeping Beauty op. 66 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Ferne Landschaft II for orchestra by Toshio Hosokawa Libretto Martin Schläpfer after the fairy tale La Belle au bois dormant by Charles Perrault, after Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky & Marius Petipa Choreography Martin Schläpfer & Marius Petipa Musical Direction Patrick Lange Stage Design Florian Etti Costumes Catherine Voeffray Light Design & Video Thomas Diek Dramaturgy Anne do Paço WORLD PREMIERE 24 OCTOBER 2022 – VIENNA STATE OPERA
about today’s performance There are countless variations on the fairy tale of Princess Aurora who is cursed by Carabosse and protected by the Lilac Fairy and falls into a hundred-year sleep until Prince Désiré finally manages to find his way into her castle overgrown with roses. The story of a woman who remains dormant until she is reawakened by the kiss of a brave hero is a trope of numerous sagas and myths. Sleeping Beauty is one of the gentlest and most beautiful of these, while other versions are more violent and cruel. Its openness to interpretation persists to this day: in telling a story about the battle of light against darkness, time against evil and bitterness, and also a story where fairies and other creatures are a natural part of people’s everyday life. The folk tale, which already existed in a number of variations, was first written down in 1636 by the Italian Giambattista Basile. The best-known versions are by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. The story found its way on to the ballet stage as early as 1829, where it was performed at the Paris Opera, choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer to music by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold and with a libretto by Eugène Scribe – established theatre makers who did not, however, score a hit on this occasion. Brought together at the behest of the theatre director Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – with his magnificent score Spyashchaya krasavitsa – and the choreographer Marius Petipa – with a structure of perfect proportions – managed to create perhaps the most complete work of the Russian ballet repertoire, which was first performed on 15 January 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. To this day, staging this work with such a rich array of characters, dances and themes remains a sublime and challenging task. Martin Schläpfer has now created his own version with the Vienna State Ballet, using dance of beauty and virtuosity to probe the inner life of its characters. Martin Schläpfer’s Sleeping Beauty aims at the very heart of the fairy tale, exposing it to the questions of our own time.
ABOUT TODAY’S PERFORMANCE
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