A ballet to waken all the senses at the movies

K-Cineplex is getting ready for a world of magic and wonder this week, firstly with the premier of the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast and then with a screening of Tchaikovsky’s adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty by the Bolshoi Ballet.

The screening of the ballet, on Sunday at the K-Cineplex Nicosia (Engomi), Larnaca and Paphos, was recorded in January as part of a series presenting masterpieces in production by Bolshoi’s historical ballet master Yuri Grigorovich, who turned 90-years-old at the start of the year.

Since the 1960s, the Russian dancer and choreographer has staged a great number of ballets for the Bolshoi, along with modern creations, and has given the company some of its most celebrated productions to date.

This ballet version of the tale enters an enchanted world of princesses, fairy godmothers and magical spells. This much-loved classic combines splendid music with talented dancers to tell of how the wicked fairy Carabosse (Vitaly Biktimirov) was furious when she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s (Olga Smirnova) christening. As a result, she gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the princess will prick her finger on it and die.

The other fairies give the princess gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song and music. One fairy though, the Lilac Fairy (Yulia Stepanova), sees this gift giving as a chance to lessen the blow of the evil spell. She makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse, one in which Aurora – a child who her parents longed and longed for – will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break.

Although the king forbids any sort of spinning throughout the kingdom, the princess grows-up and on her 16th birthday – as the evil spell promised – she discovers the spindle, is curious and pricks her finger. She falls into an enchanted sleep and the whole palace sleeps with her. One hundred years later, Prince Florimund (Anastasia Denisova) discovers the palace, hidden deep within a great, dark forest and wakes Aurora with a kiss – just as the second spell promised.

First choreographed to Tchaikovsky’s great musical score by Marius Petipa in Russia in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is a narrative told in dance. It is heightened with the Bolshoi’s staging with luxurious sets and costumes which turn Charles Perrault’s fairy tale classic into a dream-like journey.

This journey is made possible by Peter Farmer, who restored and updated for this production the designs by Oliver Messell, one of the greatest stage designers of the 20th century.

The Sleeping Beauty
Screening of the ballet. March 19. K-Cineplex Nicosia, Larnaca and Paphos. 7pm. €10/8. Tel: 24-819022

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