Dance review
There’s an absolutely magical sequence in the middle of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s new production of “The Sleeping Beauty” that’s enough to make you believe in fairy tales, or at least want to live inside of one. A simple wooden boat, carrying a prince, a fairy and a small attendant wielding an oar, glides effortlessly across the stage, seemingly propelled by the lush, otherworldly Tchaikovsky music rising from the orchestra pit, its tones the color of twilight. Lush projections, of blue-green mossy forests and quiet ponds, fill the stage, ever-changing; watching it, the vastness of McCaw Hall falls away and you feel like you’re on the most beautiful of journeys, with a sleeping princess at its end to be awakened with a kiss.
The look of PNB’s new “Beauty,” a $4.35 million project and a remarkable multiyear design collaboration involving Preston Singletary (sets), Paul Tazewell (costumes), Wendall Harrington (projections), Reed Nakayama (lighting) and Basil Twist (puppetry), has been highly anticipated — there was an unusual buzz in the packed auditorium on Friday’s opening night. And what that audience saw was something very different from PNB’s previous production of “Sleeping Beauty”: This version takes place in an imaginary world whose look is influenced by design traditions of Indigenous Northwest coastal culture — a sharp-eyed eagle, whose wings conceal two sweeping staircases, dominates the set, and many of the costumes feature the dark shapes and swirls of formline, a traditional feature of Northwest Indigenous art.
The result is a striking combination: a set that for much of the ballet is mostly spare and monochrome, setting off wildly colorful and fanciful costumes. Act I, with its bright rainbow of sparkling tutus, becomes a visual feast despite the bareness of the set, and the forest scenes of Act II, with lords and ladies in exuberantly draped capes and gowns of teal and burnt orange and an array of nymphs in delicately varying shades of sea foam, were breathtaking. It’s a production full of whimsical detail, such as the rat puppets surrounding the wicked fairy Carabosse, who seemed to be creating a sort of malevolent rodent cyclone, and the butterfly wings on the tutus worn by the Lilac Fairy’s attendants. And if not every choice resonated — the animated eagle that opens the ballet seemed a bit too, well, animated — this “Sleeping Beauty” is nonetheless a unique and wonderfully Pacific Northwest-flavored achievement, and a celebration of the many dozens of craftspeople who brought these visions to life.
As a ballet, “The Sleeping Beauty” dates back to the 1890s and Russian master choreographer Marius Petipa. It’s a simple story told through pure dance, with little of the dramatic fireworks of “Swan Lake,” and its trademark move for a ballerina is a series of precise balances rather than rapid-fire turns. On opening night, Angelica Generosa as Princess Aurora brought her usual magic; she’s a dancer of rare delicacy and charm, and the air on stage seems to suddenly become lighter when she enters. The famous Rose Adagio balances were a bit of a struggle on opening night, but the sequence was nonetheless lovely, particularly when she leans in arabesque to listen to a line of musicians, a hand gracefully wafted to her ear. Jonathan Batista, in the thankless role of the prince (he doesn’t even appear until the ballet is half over), partnered her beautifully in the later scenes, seeming to share her sense of joyful wonder.
Elle Macy brought a gentle authority to the Lilac Fairy, and Dylan Wald was appropriately diabolical as Carabosse (in a gloriously elaborate, darkly glittering costume that cleverly converted to a cocoon). In smaller roles, Juliet Prine danced the Breadcrumb Fairy variation with the elegant softness of one stepping on velvet, Ashton Edwards sparkled charmingly as the Fairy Canari, and Mark Cuddihee and Clara Ruf Maldonado were a delight in the Bluebird pas de deux. And oh, that boat ride. “The Sleeping Beauty” runs through Feb. 9; go if you can, and see a little magic.