The Kiev Ballet visited Geneva with the Sleeping Beauty Ballet. Music of Tchaikovski, Choreographed by M. Petipa.
The King, Floristan XIV celebrates the batism of her daughter Aurora, dancer Tetiana Tsygankova in the picture. The fairies bring her presents: beauty, generosity, etc. Fairy Carabosse, dancer Margaryte Kuznietsova, arrives angry for not being invited to the party, throwing a spell on Aurora: during her 16th birthday she will pinch her finger and die. The other fairies transform the spell into a deep sleep, saving her from death. And so it happens, she falls into a deep sleep until Prince Désiré, dancer Konstyantyn Vinovoy (seen in the picture) saves her with a kiss of love. They marry and live happily ever after.
The great performance of Aurora, that is, of Tetiana Tsygankova and Fairy Carabosse, Margaryte Kuznietsova, has risen the level of the Kiev ballet. They were light, expressive, emotive, and simply put, fantastic. One could feel they were true and believable. The prince on the other hand. was a good dancer, though not very exquisite, acting entirely too feminine and old to match a role adequate to accompany Aurora. No pun intended, but hard truths can oftentimes overwhelm the sense and feeling of reality great ballets are capable of in a performance when dancers and actors do not aesthetically adhere to the believability of the show.
The ballet troupe was confusing. They were in a party and some looked as if they were in pain. Aurora fell sleep with the spell and some of the dancers were smiling! Non sense, as the story goes, the dancers are in a final wedding party and two dancers pose resembling very serious facial expressions while the others look as if they were having the time of their lives, wearing broad smiles. Technically, some of them were very good, but most appeared too thin and therefore inexpressive. Some of their faces appeared so boney that they actually resembled an inability to even show proper expression, forcing some viewers to be further distracted from the story. Others seemingly had a lot of tension in their necks, a fairly common mistake in some dancers. Whenever going on point shoes you see the tension and rigidity.
Overall, a good ballet, worth seeing. Big congratulations to Aurora and Carabosse!