Moscow Ballet Performs Tonight
April 26, 2010 by: Aprille Hanson
The magical story of a sleepy princess will be brought to life through dance at 7:30 p.m. today when the Moscow Festival Ballet presents “Sleeping Beauty” in Reynolds Performance Hall.
The world-renowned ballet company will present the classic fairy tale about a princess cursed into slumber by an evil witch who can only be saved by a prince.
The ballet is in three acts with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovski and choreography by Marius Petipa. It first premiered on January 16, 1890, at the Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The ballet opens with Princess Aurora’s 16th birthday where she is cast under a spell by pricking her finger on a spindle. The second and third acts introduce the prince, who eventually saves Princess Aurora from her comatose state.
The ballet is a magnificent display of Petipa’s choreography, which centers around “steel point work, sharply accented spinning turns, soaring leaps, high extensions, brilliant battery (beats in the air) and daring lifts,” according to his Web site.
Scene from "Sleeping Beauty"
The Moscow Festival Ballet company was created by legendary dancer Sergei Radchenko in 1989 and has completed two tours throughout Europe. It has been touring the United States since 1997. According to its Web site, the main vision of the company is to “bring the highest classical elements of the great Bolshoi and Kirov Ballet companies in an independent new company within the framework of Russian classic ballet.”
Students can get two free tickets at the Reynolds Box Office with a valid student I.D. Public tickets begin at $30.
