Sleeping Beauty, Coliseum - review

Tamara Rojo sparkles as Princess Aurora in a wicked fairytale
p46 Sleeping Beauty performed by English National Ballet Tamara Rojo as Princess Aurora, ©Alastair Muir
Alastair Muir
Lyndsey Winship10 January 2013

Tamara Rojo is a woman with a lot on her plate. Not only is she artistic director of English National Ballet but she continues to dance leading roles, opening this run of Sleeping Beauty as Princess Aurora. One of the top dancers in the world, Rojo is best known for delving into the drama of her characters, and she once let slip to me that she had no interest in dancing any more Auroras as it was such a two-dimensional part. She’s right. Although this is Kenneth MacMillan’s version — a lover of psychodrama if ever there was one — it’s a traditional reading, and it’s a fairytale that lacks narrative tension, jeopardy and any real emotional connection between the two leads. It’s just party, sleep, dream sequence, wake up, wedding. Boom. (Although it takes three hours to get through all that — there’s a lot of dancing in between.)

Two-dimensional it may be, but Aurora is still a killer role. You spend the whole first act waiting in the dressing room, and then when you finally get on stage it’s straight into one of the most testing and exposed challenges for a dancer, the Rose Adagio, where Aurora executes a series of lengthy, precarious balances in attitude. Tonight, Rojo doesn’t look her most relaxed or consistent, but when she pulls off one extra-long, hush-inducing, time-freezing balance, she throws her head back with a look that says: you know who you’re dealing with here, don’t you?

Needless to say, whatever her reservations about the role may be, Rojo is a total pro. But it’s not all about her. This is an ensemble work, and there’s plenty of stage time for the whole company. Rojo’s prince, the long-legged Russian Vadim Muntagirov, nearly leaps off the stage in his bravura variation with his flying jetés; there are the famous Cuban jumps from Yonah Acosta in his Bluebird pas de deux with the pristine Shiori Kase; and James Streeter’s wicked fairy Carabosse basically steals the show as a sort of Queen of Hearts meets Cruella de Vil.

The costumes, by Nicholas Georgiadis, are amazing: sumptuous and extravagant, in a palette of dusky pastels, everything tastefully gilded — although some of the boys might have balked when they saw the shiny peach skintight breeches. And when the court wakes up after 100 years, their Elizabethan ruffs have been miraculously replaced by powdered wigs.

So, a beautiful production, but not a gripping story, which means the dancing has to do all the work. I’d say Rojo and co just about pulled it off.

Until January 19 (020 7845 9300, eno.org)

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