Customer Reviews

Tchaikovsky - The Sleeping Beauty / Durante, Solymosi, Dowell, Royal Ballet

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I needed a video so that my young daughter could see what she was working toward in her beginning ballet class. She'd seen a local performance of "The Nutcracker" but I wanted her to see a completely professional company at work. I couldn't have chosen better. The production is very traditional, best for a first-time experience. Durante is a marvelously delicate Aurora and Solymosi is every inch a prince. The video quality is excellent which cannot be said of very many ballet videos on the market. The lighting is such that every detail is visible and the sound quality is high. My only quibble is that the story scrolls by so fast that it is difficult to read it outloud. Very minor quibble, that!

It is generally agreed by ballet critics that video and film cannot capture the impact of a ballet performance, and are best used to record performances so that later dancers can see how it was done. However, these critics have the advantage of living in those few cities with well established ballet companies. Sleeping Beauty is a long ballet, with many roles, and thus is beyond the resources of all but the largest companies. This video is of an excellent performance by the Royal Ballet. The dancing, costuming, and sets are all excellent. The camera work also does a good job of making up for not being there in person.

An incomparable performance of the Tchaikovsky-Petipa masterpiece from the Royal Ballet. From the moment the curtain rises on the Prologue we are swept into world of fairy tale splendor. Viviana Durante is exquisitely beautiful and technically brilliant as Aurora with stud-muffin Solymosi (he of the supple buttocks) her accomplished Prince; Dowell is a deliciously evil Carabosse with the lovely Hussein countering him as the beneficent Lilac Fairy. Sets and costumes are fabulously splendid, suggesting the early 18th and 19th centuries. In the panorama scene, the Prince travels through a wintery landscape to raise Aurora from her deathlike sleep, and, in the final act, their union is celebrated beneath a brilliant sunburst with Aurora's fairy tale guests dressed in lovely pastel costumes. This production cannot be bettered nor praised enough: every art of ballet theater has been lavishly employed in its creation. Principals, solists, corps, designers, and musicians are all in magnificent form. A 'Sleeping Beauty' that will delight most.

This is one of the finest performances of The Sleeping Beauty available. It is exactly what you should expect from the Royal Ballet. The dancing is about as good as it gets: both the female and the male dancing. Fortunately, the male adagio in the second act is included; since there is a great deal of female dancing in this ballet, it is a pity that this adagio is often omitted, so I am glad to see it here. Everything else is fantastic as well, including the costumes and the surreal set design. I found the DVD picture quality to be perfect as well, as one would expect from a 1994 production, so, if there is a problem, check your equipment!

Vivana gave an absolutely stunning performance in this video! She pulls off one of the hardest and most demanding roles of all time, especially for being quite short, although the ballerina that is most famous for this part id 6'0" tall! Vivana was amaizing, astounding, and any other word that means "awesome" AKA...she was All That and a bag of potato chips. The whole company was absolutely flawless, and the Lilac Fairy is one of the most gorgeous dancers that I have ever seen. I reccommend this video very, very, very much. This year my small company is performing a version of this video, and if anyone lives close by the information is: San Antonio, Texas at the Mc Allaster Theatre May 19-20, and Fredricksburg, Texas June 7. For maore information, call (210)696-4220. Enjoy this video while its still only 5 years old!

Surviving four acts of classical ballet and Tchaikovski in the days of Pina Bausch takes... a lot. In this case it is easy thank's to the quality of every soul involved in the production. It is difficult to think of a better Aurora for Dowell's version. Durante is magnificent. Solymosi knows he is not a great soloist, and dedicates himself to be a good "partenaire" (smart move!) and a handsome prince (yes, that is called "danseur noble" and seems to be rare today with so many male ballet divas in New York and Paris). Of course the greatest "thing" is Dowell's Carabosse: That's acting-dancin Ms. Pina Bausch! Costumes, lighting, orchestra, the whole company. I cannot think of anything dissapointing except, maybe, the need of a strongest Lilac Fairy. Thank you Royal Ballet!

Durante is a vivacious and lively Aurora; Solymosi is a competent Prince and the Lilac Fairy is one of the most authoritative dancers I have seen in this role in a long time. Every dancer from Durante down to the Corps is wonderful and Jane Burn and Belinda Hatley shine as 2 of the fairies.

The production is less refined than the POB production (where you can see real lyrical dancing from every member of the cast) . *However*, it more than makes up for it with the energy and passion which the POB production sorely lacks. If there is only one Sleeping Beauty you can get, this is it.

There technically more assured Princess Auroras around (well not many)- but no one has come close to Durante in charisma and personality. She is so absolutely adorable . Some may prefer a more aloof and dignified Princess - but Durante is the Princess for me! Absolutely wonderful.

Her Rose Adagio is a sight to behold. Perfect balances, no wobbles.

Everything else about it is good as well except the sets which are over the top! A charming performance by Hussain as the Lilac Fairy

Only if you have a TV screen of about nine inches will this DVD look sharp. On a normal size TV it is very fuzzy. On a big screen TV it is essentially unwatchable. It's hard to believe this performance is on the market in a DVD format. Most of the good reviews seem to have been from VHS tape watchers, where the picture quality expectations are low. But I have never even seen a commercial VHS tape with picture quality this poor. How can I get my money back?

The Royal Ballet has always regarded Sleeping Beauty as its calling card, from the days when Margot Fonteyn made a sensation in NYC as Aurora. Perhaps no other Petipa ballet is so suited to the Royal Ballet style -- regal, elegant, perhaps even a bit stiff.

In 1993, a much ballyhooed new production of Sleeping Beauty was unveiled at the Royal Ballet. It was produced by Anthony Dowell, and combined the truly bad (the sets, which were centered around bizarre skewed semi-circle steps at the back of the stage) with the ugly (the overfrilly-fussy tutus, the ugly hats on all the extras). The Prologue was especially unfortunate -- in ballet, scenery's first goal is to do no harm. The overwhelming, gray dome-shaped backdrop hovered over the fairies in the most unflattering way. Aurora's entrance is also ruined by the semi-circle steps -- she's supposed to bound onstage, a beacon of light and energy. In this production she has to gingerly negotiate the steps, ruining one of Sleeping Beauty's most charming moments. More importantly, the semi-circle acts as a barrier between the dancers and the court onlookers. It has the unintentional effect of making the court proceedings look terribly remote.

The Aurora of this production, Viviana Durante, is in many ways a remarkable dancer. Tiny, with a face that's not particularly beautiful, she wins us over by the sheer solidity of her dancing. It'd be hard to improve on her balances in the Rose Adagio -- no wobbling, no shaking, no frantic grabbing of the next prince's hand. In many ways, she's the perfect British Aurora. Earthbound and very classical, she omits all the big grand jetes that the Russian Auroras are so fond of. Whereas Russian Auroras with their heavily arched placement of their back, neck, head and even legs usually struggle in the Rose Adagio and triumph in the Vision Scene, Viviana is the opposite. There's nothing ethereal about Viviana. She has an incredible vertical alignment and sense of balance. Nothing can shake this -- no attitude, no balance, no developpe. If I make Viviana Durante's Aurora sound charmless, I dont mean to. In fact, her solidity *is* the charm. By the final pdd with the famous fishdives, Viviana had thoroughly won me over, not by her smile or her looks or her ethereal jumps, but by her absolute consistency. It's a joy to see the demands of a role so wonderfully mastered.

Benazir Hussein is the Lilac Fairy, and perhaps the weakest link in the cast. Her very ordinariness is a detriment to a role that requires extraordinary grace and charm. Technically, she's weak. In the Prologue she fumbles the Lilac Fairy's variation. The Lilac Fairy is supposed to turn, kick her leg up in attitude, turn again, kick again, and so on, never putting her free leg down. Benazir can't pull this trick off, and she substitutes a turn, followed by an arabesque. But she struggles even with this easier variation. She has to stop after two turns, puts her free leg down, does two pirouettes, and lamely tries the variation again. She does this in an incredibly sloppy way, travelling all over the stage. Not one of the video's highlights.

Prince Florimund has perhaps the weakest role of all -- he does little other than support Aurora in the Vision Scene and Wedding. Zoltan Solymosi does a fine job, but he is way too tall for the tiny Durante (the original Aurora was supposed to have been the very tall Bussell, who pulled out due to injury).

Anthony Dowell is the Carabosse. Future star Leanne Benjamin is the Florine (and a good one I might add).

One other thing to add: the Royal Ballet version keeps much of the mime of Sleeping Beauty, whereas the Soviet versions eschew the mime. To me, mime is important in Sleeping Beauty, to flesh out the fairy tale. When a storyline is so thin, mime breathes life into the ballet.