Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty

Bonynge, Richard;
The Cullberg Ballet;
National Philharmonic Orchestra

DVD 100054

Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty is here transformed by the masterful contemporary choreographer Mats Ek into an allegory of repression, love and emotional maturity set in a bleak, stylised postmodern limbo which is both chilling and, just occasionally, bleakly humorous. Traditionalists may be flinching already, but this is a ballet which has always lent itself to this kind of treatment. Indeed, what many will think of as the "traditional" interpretation is in fact Diaghilev's forward-looking production of 1921, which had sets and costumes by Bakst and re-instrumentation by Stravinsky. Ek's Princess inhabits a world seemingly out of Fritz Lang, where Carabosse is a drug-dealing low-life and the Fairies are a gaggle of sneering girlies. Ek removes his work from the classical tradition to a large degree, but what goes in its place is a highly disciplined yet tactile and gut-wrenchingly emotive approach, conveying both the external and internal narratives of the work with unfailing conviction. --Roger Thomas

DVD

Muzyka klasyczna

Arthaus

10-04-2000

4006680100548