In “The Sleeping Beauty,” a King and Queen welcome their first child by throwing a christening ceremony.
Six fairies, each representing a virtue, are invited to bestow gifts on the Princess Aurora but the party is crashed by an evil fairy who’s upset that she didn’t make the guest list. Her revenge for the snub is to place a curse upon the baby. On her 16th birthday, Princess Aurora will prick her finger on a spindle and die.
But you’ve likely heard this story before. “The Sleeping Beauty” with music by Tchaikovsky, is one of the most well-known ballets in the genre and spoiler alert; the story has a happy ending.
One of those good fairies intervenes and though she doesn’t have enough power to completely undo the curse, she does alter it, allowing for a 100-year sleep for the princess who is awakened by a kiss from a handsome prince.
From that moment on, playing Sleeping Beauty is challenging, both emotionally and physically according to Robert Grenfell, executive director of First State Ballet Theatre.
“It’s an extraordinarily difficult role,” he says. “There is one part of the ballet called the ‘rose adagio’ during which four courtiers dance with the princess and the technical and the artistic demands on the princess are really extraordinary.”
But, he says, the Wilmington dance company is up to the task.
“I am moved by the virtuosity of the dancers,” he notes. “People who see this performance at the Grand this weekend will remember at least that section of “Sleeping Beauty” for the rest of their lives.”
And while Grenfell is confident in the work produced by First State Ballet Theatre, he does admit to being concerned about the increasing ubiquity of personal communications devices and their contribution to audience erosion.
Michael Kaiser, former head of the Kennedy Center and the American Ballet Theatre predicts in his most recent book, “Curtains?, The Future of the Arts in America,” that unless something dramatic happens to increase the audience for performing arts, the country will have two kinds of performing arts companies; the big, well-known stalwarts like the Metropolitan Opera and small local volunteer companies like the Wilmington Drama League, but nothing in between.
“Everyone of us in the arts wakes up every morning trying to think of new and more effective ways to tell our story and to persuade people to turn off the laptop, put down the cell phone and come to the theater,” says Grenfell. “The only way to see a ballet or to hear a symphony is in the theater, sharing that experience with an audience. Live is always better.”
“Sleeping Beauty” plays The Grand Opera House in Wilmington this weekend. Ticket information is available at firststateballet.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu6jig5GP00
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.