#mikhailovsky

Hopefully she can thrive and excel there, hoping for the best for her !!!

If true, that is an excellent place for her to land! And I cannot wait to see her on stage again. Adding this little clip as a reminder of what a great jumper she is!

And there she is! Anastasia has been dancing principal roles for Mikhailovsky so I’m glad they finally promoted her.

She was one of the top graduates for her class, 2020 I think, so this is a fast promotion. I remember a lot of people would have preferred to see her at Mariinsky or Bolshoi but I think she made a very smart decision to join/return/stay at Mikhailovsky.

Oh, each company has their favourite production, and with that, their preferred look/mood/period inspiration, since The Sleeping Beauty is a late 19th century ballet inspired by the 17th century version of a much older fairy tale, the time set is not fixed. Which is rather cool, since that gives the costume and art departments of each company the chance to make (and then show us) their own fantasy world.

Here a little tour of my favourite versions (add your own!)

The Mariinsky’s production is inspired by the 17th century and the Sun King. Aurora’s world is pretty much 16th century, and the Prince’s world is 17th century. The production they have nowadays is a revisited version of the 1890 original, from the choreography to the sets, so this is THE version to check if anyone is looking for “the original” one.

The Bolshoi’s production is clearly late 17th-early 18th century inspired, with a touch of exoticism because of course:

The Mikhailovsky dances Nacho Duato’s version, and their production is full modern fairy tale, very much in the style of Once Upon a Time, and this makes the entire production look very fresh:

Hong Kong Ballet is one of my favourite companies in the world, since they always manage to make ballet look very cool while remaining quite classical. Their Sleeping Beauty has the best ads, and is also a modern fairy tale world with a touch of 19th century imagination. Also, I LOVE a colourful production:

The Royal Ballet has a 17th century inspired production, and a production like this is is pretty much the norm around the world:

The English National Ballet goes a little bit beyond, showing us their very British version with a production by Kenneth MacMillan that goes with references from the Elizabethan, Stuarts and Georgian times:

The American Ballet Theater goes very much late 17th-early 18th century, and the costumes are based on the original designs of León Bakst for Les Ballets Russes in 1921.

New York City Ballet’s production is very much 17th century and heavily inspired by theatrical costumes of the time. You can see them close up in this funny video they made.

Finally, the National Ballet of Canada has a production that is deeply ornamented, it looks very rich and baroque, even with an inspiration that looks more to the late 18th century, by Rudolf Nureyev: