© Gene Schiavone ABT 'Sleeping Beauty' reviews 'Sleeping Beauty' reviews Wiles in reviews Herrera in reviews recent ABT reviews more Rachel Straus reviews Discuss this review (Open for at least 6 months)

The program notes of Sleeping Beauty, which held its premiere on June 1, didn’t highlight the production elements—its pyrotechnics and its $2 million sets and costumes—which make this ballet a spectacle. Instead, it stated that ABT’s Beauty was “inspired by the 1952 staging of Konstantin Sergeyev for the Kirov Ballet” after Marius Petipa’s 1890 version and includes “additional choreography and staging by Kevin McKenzie, Gelsey Kirkland and Michael Chernov.” With Kirkland in a director’s role, ABT balletomanes, who hadn’t seen Kirkland on their stage since 1984 and who had never known her as a choreographer, were a buzz. A New York Times preview article by Jennifer Dunning confirmed the new ballet’s mime scenes and the choreography for Carabosse and Prince Desiré would be tweaked and expanded, but Dunning didn’t find out which of the three principal creators had done what to which role or scene. There was also mention of new characters. They materialized in the form of the Fairy Knights.

In Act III, four Fairy Knights appeared in shiny unitards with little wings affixed to their backs while Angel Corella as Prince Desiré stood dazed and transfixed: A projection of the lost Sleeping Beauty castle materialized on the cyclorama. The men circled and then carried Corella aloft, creating a four-manned, chariot cum hearse image. At that moment, I thought that Saturday Night Live, a weekly comedy show, would have a hey day with these affirmative action Fairies who help Desiré find his similarly prone Princess Aurora (danced serenely by Paloma Herrera). I could hear a SNL comedian riffing, “Since there are female fairies, shouldn’t there be male ones too and shouldn’t we put them in blue?”

As the blue male Fairies soared about, a float carrying Aurora/Herrera crisscrossed the stage. With an enormous falcon’s head and a gray muscular wing, it reminded me of the gargoyles on top of New York’s Chrysler Building, a steel paean to the motorcar and all things modern. Consequently, this float carrying the gauzy white Princess looked extremely out of place. But considering Walton won an Oscar for his set design of the psychedelically rich movie “All That Jazz,” I could see what former sources he was drawing from. He was thinking of Bob Fosse’s drug trips. Since McKenzie, Kirkland and Chernov aren’t known for their choreography, it makes sense they would try to beef up their production with over the top sets. In Act III, the newlyweds performed against a white, curlicue, aqua marine-accented palace, which looked like a Liberace fantasy. Who says that married couples shouldn’t try to dance in their cake too?
 

As for Willa Kim’s ad hoc costumes from different historical periods and moments in time (Medieval, Louis XV, Goth, Go-Go Girl), they dazzled and befuddled me. The gowns for King Florestan and his Queen resembled a gold and royal blue Faberge egg. The six Fairies’ sparkly tutus reminded me of Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. But when the Fairy of Joy, danced by Zhong-Jing Fang, moved with scissoring arms and knife-sharp pas de chats on pointe, she wrestled me from visions of lost children. Fang danced with an adult, fiery power. Others dancers that did likewise were Sarah Lane as Princess Florine. Lane repeated a backward moving fuette attitude into a passé relevé effortlessly, each time shading the phrase with a slightly different musical attack. It was divine for its gleaming, melodious quality. Corella also danced nobly. He has a dervish’s ability to turn faster and faster, rolling up his energy into a fiery inferno and then stopping on a dime, making what had just transpired seem a figment of our imaginations. Herrera’s solo in Act II, after her perfectly executed hold-your-breath balances in the Rose Adagio, was delightfully spirited. The Argentine princess even smiled.

The most singular draw of ABT’s new beauty was Kirkland, who chose to perform the role of the bad Fairy Carabosse twice. Unfortunately, she didn’t perform the role at the June 2 matinee. Nonetheless, Carabosse, as performed by Carmen Corella, transmitted a personal message from Kirkland. She strutted the stage with a head held high. She was more haughty than hoary. In her wig and vampish gown, she towered above the other dancers and dominated all the scenes with her svelte pizzazz. Though Kirkland’s choreography for Carabosse didn’t include classical dance steps, her characterization of the role said, I’m here and I’m not going away. I hope that’s true. I would love to see more of Kirkland. But I’d rather see her on stage with less smoking, firing, exploding and levitating machines. Carabosse first appeared after a thunderbolt; she left with a poof of smoke, resembling a nuclear mushroom cloud. In Act III, she was lifted via two black wires to do battle with the Lilac Fairy. The effect was dopey and I’m not talking about the Disney character.

All these pyrotechnics might have thrilled youngsters, but I didn’t see any of them in the house. In general, the Met tickets are too expensive and this under three-hour version is still too long for kids. As the orchestra audience fled their seats with the first curtain call, I couldn’t blame them. The production had started 25 minutes late. The one intermission was too short. Most of all, the dancing had taken second place in importance to the eye-popping sets and costumes. Doesn’t ABT know their audience wants to see dance first? Michele Wiles, whose arms moved like gentle waves lapping across a soft beach, made a beautiful Lilac Fairy. Her watery arms expressed the wonder of Romantic ballet better than any stunt. Wiles shouldn’t have been strung up at the ballet’s end. All of her limbs deserve to be free to dance.