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The Royal Ballet’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty is so exquisitely designed (Peter Farmer after Oliver Messel) and produced with such vigour and good taste by a raft of experienced company artists, including RB director Monica Mason, that Sarah Lamb’s inadequacies as the eponymous heroine Aurora last Monday were absorbed in the rest of the production’s excellence.

Lamb is a more than competent technician and there were many striking moments, but last week she appeared to be out of her depth. The ROH stage is a cruelly revealing arena and today, when technical perfection is almost the norm, it is hard to excuse a dancer the series of stumbles that marked Lamb’s performance. But it was more than faulty footwork. There is a natural authority about a dancer who is ready to take on the great ballerina roles. Absent, unfortunately, in Lamb. In all the big set pieces, like the famous Rose Adage at her opening birthday party and the Vision scene where as a spirit she mystically appears to seduce her Prince, she was merely part of the action, not the driving focal point.
 

Viacheslav Samodurov, as Lamb’s partner, Prince Florimund, is a muscular dancer who can pack a powerful punch. During his three years with the company Estonian born Samodurov has also honed his lyrical, romantic qualities to considerable effect. His solo in the gloomy forest as a broody boy in love with love was created for Anthony Dowell, one of the finest lyrical dancers we have ever produced. Samodurov is not far behind with a fluid movement and restrained intensity. Iohna Loots was one of the best White Cats seen for a long time with her provocative innocence and impeccable timing while Caroline Duprot’s Fairy of the Song Bird was a chirpy delight. But this superbly balanced production which the company has settled into with confidence and attack, will stand on its own for many years to come.