Article: `Sleeping Beauty' awakes ballet season

"A final definition of Czarist spectacle," ballet patron Lincoln Kirstein dubs "The Sleeping Beauty," the classic that Boston Ballet has selected to open its 30th season, with performances Thursday through Nov. 7 in the Wang Center.

If you consider all the ways in which "Sleeping Beauty" is important, it is arguably the most pivotal production in ballet history. With this one score, Tchaikovsky elevated music for dance, moving it away from Minkus fluff and giving it new depth and dignity. Petipa's choreography was the summit of the ballet de cour, which paid homage to absolute monarchy by showing kings and queens as godlike in their grace. With its first-act Louis XIV decor, "Sleeping ...

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