The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)

The Sleeping Beauty (Russian: Спящая красавица, romanized: Spyashchaya krasavitsa listen^ⓘ) is a ballet in a prologue and three acts to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 66, completed in 1889. It is the second of his three ballets and, at 160 minutes, his second-longest work in any genre. The original scenario was by Ivan Vsevolozhsky after Perrault's La belle au bois dormant, or The Beauty Sleeping in the Forest; the first choreographer was Marius Petipa. The premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890, and from that year forward The Sleeping Beauty has remained one of the most famous ballets of all time.^[1]

^ Roger Fiske (1973): Eulenberg Edition, Foreword to the complete score of the ballet: "On 2 Feb 1939 Sadler's Wells presented the ballet in London with Margot Fonteyn in the title role... This was the first successful production outside Russia, and it led to The Sleeping Beauty becoming extremely popular in all countries where classical ballet is cultivated. . . The way in which he developed his themes and the lavish originality with which he scored the music raised his ballets far above those his predecessors had composed."

[1] Roger Fiske (1973): Eulenberg Edition, Foreword to the complete score of the ballet: "On 2 Feb 1939 Sadler's Wells presented the ballet in London with Margot Fonteyn in the title role... This was the first successful production outside Russia, and it led to The Sleeping Beauty becoming extremely popular in all countries where classical ballet is cultivated. . . The way in which he developed his themes and the lavish originality with which he scored the music raised his ballets far above those his predecessors had composed."

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