Sleeping Beauty

Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty in Petipa's original choreography is considered the most important classical ballet of all time. But what does it mean, original choreography? Today there are only approximations, and so Neumeier has made the temporal distance between then and now into one of the principal themes. And so when Sleeping Beauty is kissed awake again after 100 years of sleep, not only do two people meet, but also two epochs at the same time. This rendezvous permitted the choreographer to use Petipa’s classical dance repertoire while at the same time placing the story in the present: a remote present, however, and, as so often in Neumeier’s work, showcased in fairy-tale visual worlds by Jürgen Rose.