Submitted by Sir Joshua, Jan 5, 2007 09:57

I know that 'title' sounds harsh, but it is accurate. Mr. Martins did a wonderful production of Sleeping Beauty when it first came out. It played as a seasonal staple for several years and then was retired to sleep in the 'boil dormant' of ballet legend. Around '93 or so I remember attending 14 consecutive performances when Princess Aurora was danced by Margaret Tracey. She was fine, if somewhat mechanical in her precision, something of a case of all Balanchine technique and no soul. Then on Saturday afternoon Judy Fugate stepped into the part and she was pure rich cream to Tracey's skim milk. She brought down the house. Fugate, outrageously underused in the latter years of her career with NYB, was trained by Balanchine who while modernizing ballet for American audiences still retained the richness of the Czarist court for whom he danced with other child performers of the Maryinsky School such as the prima ballerina assoluta Alexandra Danilova. But Judy was also fortunate in having been coached for the part by the great Gabriella Darvash the legendary coach and one of the greatest ballet teachers in America.

Mr. Martins is trying to fit Sleeping Beauty into the mind of the TV audience. He once said, 'Do what sells.' and he is following his own advice. He knows that two intermissions with full Petipa choreography would only boar people with a short attention span. If SB were remounted in it's full courtly splendor it would educate and expose us to what Petipa & Tichowsky wanted us to see. Cutting it down is like editing the fussy little side figures from the Sistine Ceiling. Unless we see works in their original format we can never understand the message the authors wished to convey. And SB is a masterpiece of substantial length, it is a novel on pointe and must be respected as such. Kudos to Ms. Whelan who is brilliant and extrordinary in her extensions, but a 'klunker' to Mr. Martins who is selling condensed milk.

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