Review: The Sleeping Beauty Keeps You Awake
Review: ★★★★
By: Sara Davidson
The Houston Ballet just finished their performances of “The Sleeping Beauty,” a ballet based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. This classic piece ran for just over two weeks and included several performances with discounted tickets for students, both through the ballets “Student Rush” and “$30 under 30” deals.
Overall, “The Sleeping Beauty” was beautifully performed, with everything from the costumes to the dancing absolutely wowing the audience. The most impressive dancing came from Aoi Fujiwara, who played Princess Aurora.
Fujiwara pulled off two Rose Adagios during her performance, where she balanced en pointe and is passed between the different prince suitors, doing a spin with each one. It was easy to see the difficulty of this move, with Fujiwara sometimes shaking by the end of each Rose Adagio, but never falling.
The costumes were also stunning throughout the performance. My personal favorite was the tutu and accessories worn by the Lilac Fairy, played by Alyssa Springer. The purple covered in delicate flowers moved like a cloud as she danced across the stage adding to the allure of her character.
I would be remiss if I spoke to the costumes of the show and didn’t also mention the White Cat and Puss-in-Boots costumes worn during Act III. These are semi-furry headpieces donned by the dancers as they prance across the stage, pretending to be the famous cats out of another fairy tale. I can only imagine how warm it must have been dancing while trapped in the costumes, but the two dancers executed their performance without letting it show.
Though the performance warned of loud noises, it did not give the exact act in which they would occur, surprising much of the audience with four successive gunshots during the Prologue as the fairy Carabosse is fleeing the scene. The ballet could have done a better job informing the audience of when exactly this noise would be occurring, since it was only in one scene and towards the end at that. There were several children sitting in the audience who were quite disturbed by the noise, and I’m sure their parents would have been more than happy to escort them out early had they known.
Overall, “The Sleeping Beauty” was a wonderfully done ballet by the Houston Ballet, and I would highly recommend making plans to see a future show, especially with the student deals that are offered.
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