Sleeping Beauty

The Grand Palace of Ballet Reopens
This DVD is primarily a celebration of the opening of the newly refurbished and truly majestic Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The disc in HD and Blu-Ray is simply awesome in its presentation. At the outset we see this huge building and then inside this immence space with the redone Royal Box with its gold double eagle of the Romanovs and the masses of gold leaf on all seven tiers of the theater set off by masses of rich red velvet hung everywhere and you are transported back to the grandeur of Czarist Russia. Then the curtain opens and we see the most lavish of productions; beautiful spiral columns and a seaside palace setting with more pillars. (Sleeping Beauty from its premier in January 1890, revival by Diaghilev in 1921 in Paris to Sergeyev’s 1939 revival for the old Vic-Wells in London have all been noted for big lavish productions that almost bankrupted each company). I don’t know about the funding but this Bolshoi is the grandest most lavish I’ve witnessed in well over a half century of attendance of dance.The one thing that Sleeping Beauty has that Bayadere, Don Quixote, Raymonda, Paquita etc. etc. don’t have is GOOD music. Tchaikovsky’s three still rein as the greats in 19th century ballet. This with it’s most brilliant choreographer Petipa make for quintessential grand ballet.The present production has choreography revised by Yuri Grigorovich who has “cleansed” the additions to the original Petipa score and brought in modern techniques of dancing. The story of Sleeping Beauty is somewhat thin but this ballet is about dancing and it is filled with it. There is a constant array of dances on stage. Grigorovich was noted for filling the stage with dancers and moving them around in a beautiful manner. What better way to show off the corps of the Bolshoi. The corps moves and works as a unit. In dance after dance one is mesmerised by the beauty of the dance and the music.The Aurora is the fantastic Svetlana Zakharova, her matchless technique is superb. I have watched this disc over and over and found every movement of hand, foot, arm and body is just right. She is a classic beauty of face so perhaps not quite perfect for the sixteen year old princess. David Hallberg is the Prince Desire and every inch a Prince. He made his fame at American Ballet Theater in New York where I always enjoyed his great performances. Now he has been (uniquely) engaged by the Bolshoi. Maria Allash always does a fine job this time as the Lilac Fairy. The Carabosse is Alexey Loparevich, a fun and frightening “bad spirit”. The whole cast is excellent. The setting is the lavish splendor of the world of Louis quatorze as was the original of Petipa. It was at this time that the “ballet” as such was conceived and nurtured. Petipa incorporated the essence of French dance spirit with that of Spain, Italy and of course Russia in this grand work. I highly recommend this disc; it is a total success in all respects.

Beautifully danced and played
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet for dancing, the story is slight and there are few dramatics. It is no Spartak or Swan Lake! This production sensibly concentrates on the dancing; the costumes and sets are vey colourful and the orchestral playing is excellent. I have just two reservations: In both opera and ballet it is always a dilemma as to how much close up should be shown, the balance between the full stage and the individual performer or costume. Here we get pretty much full stage most of the time. This creates a wonderful spectacle but as Blu-ray viewers cannot whip out their opera glasses to take a close up peek at their favourite dancer the cameras need to create these moments. I felt there was not enough close ups in this production and this detracted from the performance on disc which on stage would have been magnificent. The other reservation was over the picture quality which seemed ever so slightly over digitalised. Despite these comments this is a colourful performance that ballet lovers should enjoy

A satisfying performance of “The Sleeping Beauty”
This is a beautiful production of “The Sleeping Beauty”. I’m not an expert judge of dance technique, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything about the dancing in this performance. Blu-ray technology makes this a clear, sharp, wide-screen video with excellent sound.

I wasn’t looking for the best performance (though I was banking on the Bolshoi to …
I confess my motives in buying this disc were philistine. I wasn’t looking for the best performance (though I was banking on the Bolshoi to be good). I wanted a native hi def recording and, especially, hi res sound. In the end it’s all good.

We really enjoyed watching this great performance. We saw a more recent performance from Mariinsky Theater with Gergiev as conductor (not yet released on DVD but available on the Mezzo TV channel) where the orchestra was not even closely as good as Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater Orchestra. I heard from the interview of Riccardo Muti that attaining perfection in art is a vane effort. At Bolshoi, these performers prove the contrary. Here the greatest of the great are Svetlana Zakharova in the title role, Maria Allash as the Lilac Fairy and last but not the least Artem Ovcharenko as Bluebird. Other dancers with shorter roles in final scene of the feast are as great. As a small detail, sometimes the finesse detail of blue costume dancers on blue painted floor may be missed, specially when cameras are not zoomed on dancers, but altogether it remains to be one great performance.

チャイコフスキーの優美で時に可愛いメロディーに乗って、流れるように物語が展開します。とてもカラフルでゴージャスな作品に仕上がっており、チャイコフスキーの偉大さとボリショイの実力に加え、映像スタッフのレベルの高さを感じます。カメラワークでの遠近、アングルのバランスの良さはこれまで観たバレエ作品の中でも最高です。ブルーレイがお勧めです。ただザハロワに期待していたので、第1幕の登場シーンで衣装とメークが似合ってなく身体も必要以上に大柄に見えてしまい、一瞬違和感を覚えました。踊りの方は文句なく素晴らしいのでちょっと残念です。第2幕は本来のザハロワのイメージでした。フローラ姫を演じているカプツォーワは同年にオーロラ姫を演じてプリンシパルに昇格したとのことなので、勝手な想像ですが、彼女をオーロラ姫にしザハロワはリラの精だったら、よりピッタリ来そうな気がします。カプツォーワが躍るローズ･アダージョを見てみたいです。

tras la legendaria BELLA DURMIENTE de la opera de Paris, la segunda mejor bella que he visto. RECOMENDABLE 100% par amantes del ballet clasico.