“The Sleeping Beauty”: a hundred and twelve questions, a hundred and twelve answers

112 questions and answers about American Ballet Theatre’s 2015 production of The Sleeping Beauty, in five parts. 

Alastair Macaulay, with Alexei and Tatiana Ratmansky, Doug Fullington, Richard Hudson. My thanks to all those, and to Mindy Aloff, Robert Greskovic, Monica Mason, Christopher Newton, Kelly Ryan, and the late David Vaughan.

  An earlier - largely but not quite identical, and differently illustrated - version of this questionnaire was published by the American quarterly magazine Ballet Review (now defunct, alas) in Winter 2015-2016 (volume 43 no 4) as a final part of its long-running series “Annals of The Sleeping Beauty”. My thanks to the late Marvin Hoshino, its longterm editor, and to that magazine for publishing it. 

  Alexei Ratmansky’s production of  Marius Petipa’s masterpiece The Sleeping Beauty had its premiere with American Ballet Theatre in Costa Mesa, California, on March 5, 2015 and its New York premiere on May 29 that year. A co-production, it opened at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 26 September that year. When I attended five performances (March 5-7, 2015) in Costa Mesa, I - unusually- was encouraged by Kelly Ryan, American Ballet Theatre’s press officer, to ask questions about the production’s historical detail. She, in turn but to my initial surprise, sent them to Alexei Ratmansky (who knew that I had researched The Sleeping Beauty in some depth), and to its designer, Richard Hudson. Meanwhile I also sent the same and other questions to Doug Fullington, who is well acquainted with the Stepanov notation for this ballet (a main source for this staging): he had worked with Alexei Ratmansky on staging the complete Paquita in Munich, and Ratmansky had consulted during his preparation of Sleeping Beauty. As the answers kept coming, the questions kept growing. 

   For me, this investigation was among the most stimulating and pleasurable periods of my career. (Criticism and history are closely connected; this connection grew keener during my years at the New York Times, though it also became a factor in my 2018 resignation from that newspaper: the larger projects of history had become more absorbing than the some aspects of daily reporting.) Even so, this investigation was atypical: during my years at the New York Times, I never had a meal or long conversation with Alexei Ratmansky. Despite good will on both sides, he has been too busy for us to be able to work again at such length - though he answered a few questions of mine on his 2018 American Ballet Theatre production of Petipa’s Harlequinade (I shared the answers with colleagues) and on his 2019 Bolshoi Ballet production of Giselle (our Q&A was commissioned by the Bolshoi and published in its Giselle programme.) In the case of this Sleeping Beauty questionnaire, I felt guilty that it might seem the New York Times was being given special treatment. I therefore shared all my material with as many critic colleagues as I could. 

  These Sleeping Beauty questions and answers were composed in four main groups and sent by email, all in spring-summer 2015 – (a) in early March, during and immediately after the five final performances of the new production in Costa Mesa, California (b) on May 30, after the May 29 New York opening night of the production at the Met (c) during June 8-14, during and after the week of subsequent Beauty performances with cast-changes at the Met (d) during July 4-8, when I could see other questions that should be asked. Some were addressed to Doug Fullington, some to Kelly Ryan (press officer for American Ballet Theatre, who initially took answers from Alexei and Tatiana Ratmansky) and Alexei Ratmansky (who in many cases soon answered directly, though always including Kelly Ryan as an email recipient). Several were addressed, via Kelly Ryan, to Richard Hudson; in some cases Alexei Ratmansky provided further answers to these. There are inconsistencies and changes of mind that may be discerned within the various questions and answers; I thought it fair to leave these as part of the discussion. Both questions and answers have been rearranged here to follow the order of the ballet. At the end of each question a date is given, with the response not dated if followed within a few days. Replies with dates indicate later thoughts or subsequent factual corrections. Inconsistencies and changes of mind will be discerned within the various questions and answers. I thought it fair to leave these as part of the  discussion. Today, I inevitably wish I had asked yet further questions, but I remember that we were all working under pressure to present this many.

  (Not all my own reactions to this production are evident here. My three New York Times reviews of the production appeared in March and June 2015.)

   While working on further questions during spring-summer 2015, I also consulted my friends David Vaughan and Robert Greskovic, both critic-historians I had known for over thirty years. Vaughan often contributed to Ballet Review’s “Annals of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’” over the decades) and Robert Greskovic. With these two in 2012, I had recorded two afternoons of extensive and analytical discussion about The Sleeping Beauty with the Dance Division of the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts (the audiotapes and transcripts are available there); and in 2013, the same two colleagues and I presented two evenings of film, illustration, and discussion about this ballet. Some of my 2015 questions also arose from conversations about the production with the critic-historian Mindy Aloff.

     @Alastair Macaulay (AM)     September 2021

General questions

1.

Macaulay. (July 4). Whose idea was to take the Bakst 1921 production as the basis for this one? I presume it had the great advantage of stopping yours seeming to compete with Vikharev's 1999 Mariinsky reconstruction of the 1890 original.

  Can you talk about the other advantages and rewards of using the Bakst/Diaghilev 1921 designs, as well as any frustrations? Sometimes Richard Hudson and you have had to add characters who were absent from the 1921 staging. But you chose to include such non-Petipa 1921 characters as the Porcelain Princesses, the Mandarin and Scheherazade.

Ratmansky. (July 8) When I directed the Bolshoi (2004-2008), we planned to reopen the historical theater after the renovation with the new Sleeping Beauty. It was clear to me that the choreography must be reconstructed from the notations, but using the original 1890 designs would mean we have an exact replica of the Mariinsky production. 

   On the other hand the new “clothes” for Sleeping Beauty are so often a miss. So Bakst seemed like the best solution. Just to imagine those legendary images come to life! The 1921 production was staged by someone who knew and adored the original.

   The distance between the eclectic academism of 1890s and the highly personal style of Bakst gave us that freedom to accommodate certain later additions to Petipa (As I’ve said elsewhere, the notation captures the choreography some 13-16 years after the premiere, already adjusted and changed in places.) Also, we wouldn’t feel obliged to use the same hundreds of dancers and supers as in the original.

   I left the Bolshoi before the big reopening (2011), so that production was not to happen, but the idea stayed with me. I just had to find the time to learn how to read the Stepanov notation. Of course, when we looked more closely at the Bakst prior to the ABT staging, we found some important designs missing (such as the Jewels, violin pages, nymphs or the Hop-o’-my-Thumb group), as well as a costume for the Prince that he could dance in. But Richard Hudson had enough historical material to look at. And then we decided to keep Bakst’s famous Porcelain and Scheherazade trios, instead of trying to create anew this giant procession of Perrault’s fairy tale characters in Act Three.

2.

Macaulay. (March 7) You have successfully asked ABT’s dancers to dance in an “1890” way, with low retirés, chaîné turns on half-point, soft arms in first arabesque, and so forth. But I was surprised to see that he consistently asks them to spot to the front in rows of turns (rather than spot in the direction of the turn). This is a style usually associated with Balanchine. Is it actually old Mariinsky?

Ratmansky. (July 8.) It’s pre-Balanchine for chaînés, and pirouettes were written down both ways, sometimes spotting to the front, sometimes to the corner. I would call the style of dancing 1900s. The notation is 1903-1906. 

   In the Prologue, the notation shows Fairy Violente doing her chaîné turns spotting front, the Lilac Fairy doing her double pirouettes spotting to the corner. Fairy Fleur de farine’s diagonal of turns is not specific. Alexander Gorsky’s notes for Aurora’s Act One solo show her spotting to the corner, while her Act Two Vision solo indicates her spotting to the front when she does double pirouettes en dedans in diagonal. And so on.

   We were trying to find a logic in it, but it is inconsistent. I’ve read a late-1930s letter from one of Agrippina Vaganova’s favorite pupils, Galina Beriosova (my wife Tatiana’s teacher in Kiev), asking Vaganova this exact question: where she thinks is correct to spot while turning in diagonal, front or corner. My guess is that the answer was “corner.” This is how it is taught in Russia.

3.

Macaulay (to Doug Fullington). (March 7.) In the Beauty dances you showed a few years ago at a Guggenheim Works and Proceed evening, there seemed to be more repetition of mini-phrases. Nonetheless, nothing in this American Ballet Theatre production feels anachronistic to me - not even the fish dives, though of course I know those were added after Petipa’s death. The softer versions of first-arabesque line, the lower retiré, the chaînés on half-toe, the steps not done at full turn-out, the avoidance of extensions above hip height: these are all remarkable feats of style in a twentyfirst-century company.

Fullington. (March 7). Alexei also asked for all these things in our Paquita, including sometimes asking the dancers to turn out less for the sake of the overall look or to see a leg crossed more, etc..

Ratmansky. (July 8). In Munich, we didn’t dare to do all B+ positions <standing on one straight leg with the other slightly bent behind> on demi-point in Munich. In New York, we played with it - like having all effacé poses on demi, all croisé fully pointed, before deciding to go demi-point for all B+ poses, just to be consistent. It was a bit shocking at the beginning, but we all got used to it very soon. 

     Most of the time, this is not specified in the notations. Period photos (2, 3, 4, 5) show both demi-point or fully pointed positions. The first two (2, 3), from the 1890 original Sleeping Beauty, show Marie Petipa and Anna Johansson with pages. Photos 4 & 5 show Tamara Karsavina as Medora (Le Corsaire) and as Paquita.

4.

Macaulay (May 30). In general, it is startling to see the speed and density of steps with which (this production suggests) Marius Petipa packed phrases. Has this surprised you too?

Ratmansky (June 2). It hasn’t, after dancing August Bournonville for seven years in Copenhagen. Paquita is even more extreme in that sense, especially the Act I dances.

5.

Macaulay. (May 30). Is there any evidence, in the notation or other material, that Petipa was choreographing in consciously “historical” styles? 

Some of the positions for Aurora in the Vision adagio look very Romantic-ballet to us, but to Petipa in 1890 would that have seemed consciously “period”? Are there moments/passages when you feel he is choreographing in a deliberately baroque era to evoke the style of Louis XIV or other past French eras?

Ratmansky. (June 2). Well, the only “period” dance that the Sleeping Beauty notation gives us is the minuet of the hunt scene. (The sarabande disappeared soon after the premiere and is not notated.) This minuet is very similar to the minuet from Act I of Don Quixote. Paquita has a wonderful “gavotte de Vestris” for two couples in the ball scene. And of course Raymonda has some “old style” dances.

   But when Petipa was choreographing “for tutu”, I feel he always used contemporary technique and style. The “Romantic” look in the Vision Scene is mostly our interpretation. The ABT ladies like to stress it because of the music.   

6.

Macaulay. (May 30). Conversely, are there any steps or sequences where you suspect Petipa was choreographing in a way that would have seemed modern in 1890?

Ratmansky. (June 2). Hops and balances on point, manèges of jetés en tournant, unsupported double pirouettes – all those steps still seemed new and exciting in 1890. They were brought in from Milano by Italian guest stars. While purists criticized the lack of grace and a “circus” style of dancing of the Italians, Petipa was quick to adopt the new developments.

   My single favorite choreographic phrase from Sleeping Beauty that looks absolutely modern today is the second dance of the Jewels trio (after the entrance of Diamond). It’s rhythmical complexity is breathtaking. There is a wonderful film on Youtube of Vera Nemchinova teaching it to a very young Katherine Healy in 1979: https://youtu.be/G1deBg5gvB4?t=3m19s

7.

Macaulay. (June 14). Your use of the notation to show details we’ve never seen often suggests that Stepanov  and his fellow notators at the Mariinsky were fastidious in recording fine stylistic details. But I’ve seen some Stepanov notation where (as far as I can tell) a lot is left vague, so that presumably it was just an aide-mémoire for régisseurs and dancers. Are there parts of this Sleeping Beauty notation that seem vague in this way? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). I would say the most difficult parts to read were: the adagio from the pas de six in the Prologue, “the nymphs” (also called “nereids” and “naiads” in the notations) in Act II, and the adagio for Aurora and the Prince from the Act III pas de deux. There is definitely not enough information there.

  Also no choreography is notated for the fairies’ cavaliers and Carabosse’s attendants in the Prologue, and for the Red-Riding-Hood and the Wolf in Act III.

     Of the mime scenes, the beginning of Act II (the notation starts with the Blind Man’s Buff) and the apotheosis of Act III are not written down.

Fullington (July 7). The collection of Stepanov notations varies widely in level of completeness, even within a particular ballet, such as Sleeping Beauty. In addition, usually more than one notator (often several) was involved in writing down a ballet, and each notator has his idiosyncrasies.

8.

Macaulay. (May 29). Three important Western productions were staged from the Stepanov notation by Nicholas Sergueyev (a Western version of his Russian name Nikolai Sergeev): the 1921 Diaghilev production of The Sleeping Princess at London’s Alhambra Theatre, the 1939 production of The Sleeping Princess for the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler’s Wells, and the late-1940s production for Mona Inglesby’s International Ballet. Now that you have studied the notation and the Royal Ballet videos, what opinion have you formed of this man?

  To me, it seems that sometimes he was teaching not what was in the notation but what the 1910-20 dancers (especially perhaps Elena Lukom, who was, according to Margot Fonteyn in her Autobiography, was his Russian favourite) were doing in Russia at the time of his departure.

Ratmansky. (June 2). Hard to tell what exactly he was teaching in London and who/when made those changes. On the one hand, his 1921-1922 letters (published in Russia last year) show him completely satisfied with The Sleeping Princess (which departed considerably from the original), not distracted in any way (contrary to Anton Dolin’s story that he left the Ballets Russes before the opening because of disagreement with Nijinska and Diaghilev). On the other hand, André Levinson called Sergeyev’s 1924 Giselle for Paris Opera “an exact copy”. Olga Spessivtseva in her 1922 letter to Akim Volinsky praised Sergeyev as the only real guard of Petipa’s choreography; she trusted him completely. She and Volinsky both thought Fyodor Lopukhov incapable of preserving an old repertory and wanted Sergeyev back in Russia.

  Sergeyev’s adjustments to Sleeping Beauty choreography are notated on different paper (adagio from the pas de six in the Prologue, parts of the Act I Garland valse, the coda in the Act I pas d’action, the danse des comtesses in the hunt scene, and the mazurka in act III). It shows him a very capable and tactful editor while the notations of the original text is a proof of his complete understanding and command of the material.  

  I have nothing but admiration towards this man, who undertook an enormous and unprecedented task of recording the whole repertory of the imperial theaters.

Fullington. (July 7). Completely agree with Alexei’s last sentence!

9.

Macaulay. (May 29). The Royal Ballet routinely works with valued notators, but I have heard dancers or répétiteurs there say that sometimes the notations contain errors. Are there times in the Stepanov notation when you suspect it contains errors?

Ratmansky (June 2). Minor things. Like, for example, the step is to be repeated four times and it takes four bars of the music; and then the next step has a preparation that takes full bar. So there is not enough music for four steps, only for three. But these are rare mistakes. Most of the times when we are quick to denounce something as a mistake, we later find out that we were wrong!

10.

Macaulay (March 7). At first impression, the tempi seem to me (likably) fast. Is there any evidence (apart from the score) how fast Tchaikovsky and Petipa wanted it?

Ratmansky (March 7). There are marks in the score, not the notation.

Fullington (March 7). Wiley (Tchaikovsky’s Ballets) has an appendix listing the metronome tempo marks from an original St. Petersburg score.

11.

Macaulay. (May 29). Robert Greskovic and I were both wondering if there were any recordings of Sleeping Beauty you particularly liked when you were preparing this production.

Ratmansky (June 2). All films with Margot Fonteyn. The Royal Ballet recording with Merle Park. The Mariinsky 1999 reconstruction by Sergei Vikharev. Peter Wright’s version for Amsterdam. Those I preferred to others.

12.

Macaulay. (June 14). Actually, we meant audio recordings: Dorati, Lambert, Rozhdestvensky, Svetlanov, Lanchbery…?

Ratmansky. (June 27). Svetlanov, Ermler, Rozhdestvensky. I am looking forward to having Fedoseev in Milano.

13.

Macaulay. (May 30). In which dances have you changed any actual steps since the Costa Mesa performances in March?

Ratmansky. (June 2). In the prologue, when the cavaliers lift the fairies (this section is composed by Nikolai Sergeyev; in Petipa, all the participants moved up and down in diagonal repeating arabesques - you can still see it in all Russian versions). We added extra lifts for two upstage couples, following the notation.

  In the Act II farandole, we finally figured out the spacing (the notation is very sketchy), and in the grand pas de deux, I asked Sarah Lane and Herman Cornejo, who didn’t perform in Costa Mesa, to do the notated diagonal instead of the fish dives. 

14.

Macaulay 14. (May 30). Have you at all adjusted your idea of 1890-1910 style since Costa Mesa? Again, I noticed some chaîné turns on half point and several very fast low retirés; but Aurora's opening développés in the "Rose" Adagio looked a bit more modern in their height and turnout. I still noticed some lines of turns executed with the dancer facing front (rather than the direction of the turn), but fewer.

Ratmansky. (June 2). I thought we actually increased the number of spotting front turns , demi-point B+ positions and low cou-de-pied positions this time around…but sometimes they forget! Aurora’s développés should be effacé throughout the ballet; no écarté in the notations. The maximum height should be around 90 degrees. I can’t find the quotation right now, but Mathilde Kshessinskaya seems to be the one who started to lift her legs above 90 degrees. I don’t mind if it’s 100 or even 110 degrees, as long as the tutu covers the groin and it has proper épaulement.  

  It’s hard to know anything about the style of dancing in 1890s or 1900s. Imitating images and few surviving films is not much of a help, because the body types are so different and we don’t want it to look grotesque. The only thing we can do is to follow the notation which simply tells us when the leg is stretched, when and how it is bent, how much to lift, in which direction and so on. Then the style comes out by itself.

15.

Macaulay (May 30). Since we are talking of period style, do we know how much the straight-knee arabesque was used before 1914? Some people feel all arabesques used to be done with a slightly bent knee.

Ratmansky (June 2). Photographs 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 show Pierina Legnani, Olga Preobrazhenska (with Nikolai Legat), Agrippina Vaganova, Ekaterina Geltzer, Julia Sedova. All these images are pre-1914. They look pretty stretched to me.

   But illustrations 11, 12, 13 show some earlier arabesque images from the French 1890 textbook.

Fullington (July 7). In the notation, 90-degree arabesques are sometimes notated both with leg bent 45 degrees and with a straight leg.

16.

Macaulay. (May 30). In California, you gave different versions of the dance text to your five casts. Will this remain true here in New York? (I cannot see other casts until June 8-13.)

Ratmansky (June 2). Minor variations, yes, especially where there are two notated versions. Veronika Part will do Maria Petipa’s Prologue variation (she has a bad back this time); the other Lilac Fairies do the other notated variation.

17.

Macaulay to Fullington. (March 7). Do you know anything about the Bakst designs? It seems to me that these ones make no serious distinction between the periods of the Prologue, Act I, and Act II.

Fullington. (March 7). I know little about the Bakst designs, but I do have a book of them right here in front of me, and they seem not to make a distinction between centuries, moving from act one to act two. They all appear essentially Baroque in inspiration.

18.

Macaulay to Richard Hudson. (March 7). Where have you found there was insufficient information on Bakst's sets/costumes to copy them at all, and where have you chosen to create something entirely of his own?

Hudson 18 (March 7). I found only a very sketchy drawing of the Hunt/Vision of a lake, foreground rocks and trees, and mountains in the background.

    I haven't copied anything directly. Everything is inspired by Bakst or invented by me.

19.

Macaulay. (March 7). We see the same curtain after the Prologue, Act One, and Act Two. I assume this is based on Bakst? Did he use it in the same places in the ballet or just to illustrate the Sleep at the end of Act One and start of Act Two?

Hudson (March 7). The Castle front cloth was found by Alexei. It is a very indistinct image. I have added a lot more detail in the rocks and trees, and the architecture of the castle. Alexei decided when it would be used.

Ratmansky (July 8). Originally, we had it for all the intermissions and for the overture as well. Now the overture is played with the house curtain.

20.

Macaulay. (June 14). What have the main design changes been since Costa Mesa? 

Hudson (June 15). I made a lot of the wigs shorter and smaller, changed the top fabric on the Rose Adagio tutu to a lighter-weight brocade, and removed the roses, changed the top fabric on the tutu of the Diamond Fairy (I thought the original was a bit garish), and gave the Lilac Fairy an underskirt so she shows less leg.

   The Lilac Fairy’s second costume is based on a very rough 1890 sketch and so are the Nymphs. I think Hop-o’-My-Thumb, his brothers, the Ogre and Ogress, are based on small black-and-white photographs.

21.

Macaulay. (March 7). It's my impression that Bakst chose to make no sharp distinction between the era of the Prologue/Act One and the century-later Act Two. Is that your impression too?

Hudson (March 7).  I think this is true. I've tried to make a bigger distinction between the Prologue/Act One and Act Two.  The Prologue/Act 1 are late 17th century; Acts Two and Three are more late 18th century.

22.

Macaulay. (May 30). David Vaughan, my companion at the Met on Friday 29, heard that you have said that, to cut the ballet's running time, you could not use all the mime. Is that true? (There seems plenty of mime to me , and the cut sections aren't mime ones.)

Ratmansky. (June 2). Most of the mime scenes are shortened, including the opening march in the Prologue, the knitting ladies and the finale of Act One; the hunt scene and the finale of Act Two; the polacca of Act Three.

   We cut completely the symphonic entr’acte and some court dances in the hunt scene (which were cut by Petipa himself in 1890), and the march at the beginning of Act Three. Also the sarabande and introduction to the pas de deux (no notation). And a regrettably big part of panorama music. But all notated mime is used.

23.

Macaulay. (July 4). How has the Russian and Western archival research enriched or clarified your idea of Petipa as a choreographer? 

Ratmansky. (July 8). First and foremost, I began to see Petipa’s reincarnation in Ashton. Ashton, in my opinion, was trying to imitate this late “Italianized” Petipa in his choreography, was trying to be or rather to become Petipa, learning the style from the former imperial dancers. As opposed to Balanchine or Nijinska, for example, who, with all their respect and admiration to the school they knew, changed it fearlessly according to their tastes and the new Russian/European artistic developments.

    There is yet another branch of Petipa’s heirs – the Soviet masters, such as Agrippina Vaganova, Fyodor Lopukhov, Vakhtang Chabukiani, who felt that it was their historical mission to renew the old style they learned in school. They were determined to make the old ballet suitable to the new ideology and new audiences. There is an astonishing 1947 Soviet film Solistka baleta ( https://vkino.net/video/2890-film-solitska-baleta-1946.html ) where the ballet teacher (modeled after Vaganova, I believe) tells her young student: if you are an artist, a real artist, you have to be honest, you must change the old choreography to make it your own. (They were rehearsing precisely the Sleeping Beauty pas de deux)….

   It was interesting to hear Baryshnikov quoting Balanchine’s description of Vaganova’s style: “vulgar”. Likewise I was impressed when I once read (although I can’t remember where) that Tamara Karsavina had remarked that what the Bolshoi men in London did was “circus, not ballet”.

    I myself, being a Bolshoi product, bought up in believe that the only place to see the “real” Petipa is Kirov/Bolshoi, had to readjust my “inner sense” of Petipa. I now feel it is much closer to Bournonville on the one hand and to Cecchetti on the other than we thought. It is like Ashton in a sense.

24.

Macaulay. (July 4). And has it given you new choreographic ideas for your own future work?

Ratmansky. (July 8). Oh, a million ideas!

Prologue

25.

Macaulay. (June 14). Can you explain why Vzevolozhsky chose these six fairies as godmothers? Candide, Fleur-de-farine, Miettes-qui-tombent, Canari, Violente, Lilac - they're like a collage from different zones. What do they have in common?

Ratmansky. (June 27). To my knowledge, most commentators agree that this strange group of fairies is a collective portrait of a grown-up Aurora, each of them representing certain quality of a perfect princess.

   There is another opinion, Elena Fedosova’s, that the fairies symbolize a perfect household and are like guardian angels to it. “Canari makes a comfortable home and protects it, Fleur-de-farine protects foods and always fills a house with foods. Miettes represents care and thoughtfulness, Violante symbolizes passion, warmth, flame and a furnace.”

   If you look at the original Vsevolozhsky designs (illustrations 14. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19), you see they illustrate some specific ideas that’s hard to decipher. it was Vsevolozhsky who named the fairies, most likely it had some hidden meanings for he was a man of encyclopedic knowledge. Maybe it contained a certain message to the Tsar or the court.

   It also might be that, for Petipa, it was simply a chance to show off his beautiful, talented soloists under those poetic labels. So it was more like portraits of their personalities then anything else. Its choreographic idea is clearer: contrasting variations on one theme – divine femininity.

26.

Macaulay. (June 14). What do Fleur-de-farine and Miettes-qui-tombent signify? Do they connect to old fairytales?

Ratmansky. (June 27). I don’t know of any fairytale connections. Here are two opinions that sound interesting; they’re drawing from sources unknown to me:

   “Miettes” (the third variation) “bestows 'fertility' according to the ancient Russian tradition of spreading breadcrumbs on the cradle.” (Giannandrea Poesio).

   “The fairy Coulante is also known as Fleur de Farine” (variation no 2). “Coulante means flowing or running.  Fleur de Farine has two meanings, one of which is ‘flour.’  Flour, used for face powder, may refer to beauty. Fleur de farine is also the common name of a flower purported to have the power of making people dance.  Therefore this fairy seems to be giving both the gift of beauty and the gift of dancing.” (Liane Fisher.)

27.

Macaulay. (June 14). There are six fairy cavaliers, but only four of them do real dancing in your production. I presume this is from the notation? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). Originally, there was a complex hierarchy of pages. Each fairy had two pages (twelve altogether: two were school girls, four were men who danced, and six were corps de ballet ladies). The 1890 affiche also lists geniuses with big fans (four ladies, four school girls) and geniuses bringing incenses (two ladies, two girls).

  We did not use the correct number of people, partly because Bakst only designed one page per fairy. Minor adjustments to the formations were inevitable, since there were no steps for those extra characters.

   The choreography for the four dancing men is not notated. What we did is a compilation of steps traditionally done by the men-pages. Interesting, that the partnering (knee sitting pose, supported pirouettes) for the two outside fairies in the line was done by the ladies-pages. That’s another proof there were no lifts in the pas de six adagio in Petipa’s original.

28.

Macaulay. (June 14). This makes me think about numerology (if that’s the right word) in classical choreography. In the Prologue here, we see four dancing cavaliers, six fairy godmothers, eight Lilac fairy attendants. This arithmetic is often more satisfying with four men rather than the usual six. Do you think Petipa was planning the arithmetic like this?

Ratmansky. (June 27). I am sure Petipa planned everything very carefully. He is said to have spent hours at home moving numerous cut-out little figurines around his table in order to find the most effective formations and transitions.

29.

Macaulay. (June 14). There are two points in the Prologue adagio where you use an unusual épaulement and/or tilt of the upper body for the six fairy godmothers: (a) when they sit on their cavaliers' knees, they really lean back; (b): when they do the canon of single supported pirouettes into attitude derrière, they do so with eyes downcast, head and arms tilting one way. (At the Royal, the fairy godmothers sit up straight, and look out front and up in the attitudes.)

   Are these ABT accentuations prompted by the notation, or by an understanding of 1890-1910 style, or by something else?

Ratmansky. (June 27). These are not from the notations. The sitting pose (illustration 20) I found in the fourth volume of Sergei Khudekov’s History of Dances (1918). On the picture below (21), you see the original fairy Violente and her page: Vera Zhukova and Platon Karsavin (Tamara’s father). The drawings from Carlo Blasis’s 1830 The Code of Terpsichore (22, 23) show this slight tilt towards the bent leg in attitude, which I find so graceful. Blasis images were the standard point of reference for the Italian dancers throughout the nineteenth century. 

   The recent picture of Uliana Lopatkina in Swan Lake (24) shows exactly what we were trying to achieve there.

30.

Macaulay. (May 29). In the Prologue adagio, when all six fairies do supported pirouettes into attitude front, and then straighten into quatrième devant, is that in the Stepanov notation? David Vaughan had previously assumed (I’m not sure why) that that was an addition of Ashton's.

Ratmansky. (June 2). The notation does not give us anything after the canon of single supported pirouettes. No transition is shown into the next formation. But Yuri Grigorovich’s Bolshoi 1973 version also has it, while the Kirov’s 1952 one doesn’t. Could it be that Grigorovich borrowed from the Royal staging? I doubt it. 

   I was looking for an evidence of Fyodor Lopoukhov’s involvement with the Grigorovich production, but couldn’t find any in the Russian sources. Tim Scholl (in A Legend in Progress) says “Lopukhov was heavily involved.” It’s an open question - because Lopukhov died a few months before the opening.

31.

Macaulay. (June 14). At one point, the eight Lilac attendants all hold sustained first arabesque. This recurs in Act One for four of Aurora’s maids of honor and then in Act Two for all sixteen Vision nymphs. (I’ll come to questions about them later.) It feels like an orchestral effect in music – say, the violins all holding one long note. But I don’t remember seeing it in the Prologue in other productions. Is it notated the same way on all three occasions? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). In all three cases, it is not notated in Stepanov but simply described in Russian as “arabesque” inside the box with the floor plans.

32.

Macaulay. (June 14). Near the end of the adagio, you group the six fairies together, three kneeling, three upright. There is a photograph of them like this in the Diaghilev production (25). Was the photograph your source? Or is this also in the notation?

Ratmansky. (June 27). We were looking for the place to incorporate this most beautiful 1921 image (#1) of the fairy godmothers sisterhood.

   The original notation for that moment is unclear. It is not symmetrical and it’s hard to be sure who is who: where are the fairies, where are female pages, the girls or Lilac Fairy attendants? Curiously, the remark in Russian says that the attendants are under the arms of the pages.

   The other notation (#2) was done by Sergeev in the 1920s, already in Europe, when he ran out of ruled paper.  This one is much clearer, but he changed the original numbers: now there are six men pages, six fairies in front on the knee doing cambré back, and eight Lilac Fairy attendants.

   It is possible that the 1921 tableau was done specifically for the picture and wasn’t used in the performances. It could also be a touch of Nijinska’s. We don’t know, but we love it. And it was the best place to put it in.

33.

Macaulay. (March 7). Each of the six fairy godmother variations has some details I have never seen before. Are they all based entirely on the Stepanov notation of the 1890s Mariinsky version? Or are you using other sources, or adding any features of his own?

Ratmansky (March 7). Nothing of my own. All variations are notated in great detail.  Sometimes it is notated twice depending on the ballerina. One (Lilac) is named after Petipa's daughter, Marie.

Ratmansky (July 8). You can still call it “Ratmansky’s interpretation of the notations.”

34.

Macaulay. (June 14). The Candide fairy (variation no 1) makes a specific, repeated, arm movement in one phrase, while holding attitude front: in some versions this is clearly the mime for "beautiful arms", but I have read (Ballet Review, vol. 6, no 1, “A Conversation with Mary Skeaping” by Peter Anastos) that it should be a reference to rolling sleeves (first up the arm and now down) because it's from an old Russian folk dance. What significance do these arms have?

Ratmansky. (June 27). A reference to the Russian folk dance doesn’t make sense to me. Rolling up the sleeves suggests readiness to work hard and for diligence, and seems too far from the symbolic area of fairy Candide (sincerity, tenderness, chastity, lily of the valley). This gesture is indeed “beautiful arms”, which, along with “beautiful face” and (in one case) “beautiful legs” is a characteristic description of Princess Aurora’s beauty.

   After the Candide variation, the gesture is repeated twice by Carabosse and once by the Lilac Fairy in her conversation with Prince Désiré. It was a common practice for Petipa to use certain signs or gestures multiple times under different lights, so everyone in the audience can guess/understand their meaning.

35.

Macaulay. (March 7). I think there is no upper-body notation for Fairy no 2 (Fleur de farine). When N.Sergueyev taught this to Pamela May in 1939, he taught her to lean forward from the waist when executing the advancing two piqués retirés of the opening phrase (slightly on the first, rather more on the second). She told me this in 1997, and her dancing of this is recorded in Victor Jessen’s 1949-1955 film of de Valois’s 1946-1967 production for Sadler’s Wells Ballet (which became the Royal Ballet in 1956). It’s an interesting proof that Sergueyev passed some things on from memory rather than notation.

Ratmansky. (March 7). It is not written down. It’s clear that Sergeyev added touches of his own. In the adagio of the Prologue, when cavaliers lift the fairies, we used the lifts. They're not Petipa’s - they are most likely Sergeyev. 

Fullington (March 7). The notation for No. 2 gives only ground plan, feet and legs--no torso, head or arms--so I think you must be correct that Sergeyev taught the upper body from memory or based on his own interpretation.

36.

Macaulay. (March 7).  Fairy no 3 (Miettes qui tombent): what does the notation show her after she hops three times on point in croisé attitude front?

Fullington. (March 7). The notation shows hopping on the left leg three times with right foot croisé attitude front, then the right foot goes behind to pointe tendu effacé back with left leg in plié.

Macaulay. (March 7). Ah – the Royal follows the three hops on point with développé through to arabesque, all on the same point. I wonder who devised that. (Possibly Ashton: Monica Mason recalls how he who coached her in this variation in the 1960s.)

37.

Macaulay. (March 7). What does the notation say about no 4's (Canari’s) hands? Everyone shows them fluttering; is this in the notation?

Fullington. (March 7). The notation states, "At all times moving the wrists."

Macaulay. (March 7). In this production, she flutters her hands not only in her variation but also in the coda, though she did not so do in the earlier ensemble adagio. Is this in the notation or in other descriptions of the Mariinsky 1890s version?

Fullington. (March 7). No rubrics about wrists in the coda. 

Ratmansky. (March 7). The fluttering in coda is not based on any evidence in the notation. Traditionally it’s done in Russia. In our staging, she does flutter in the adagio.

Macaulay. (March 8). I noticed the fluttering in one section of the adagio at the next performance, of course! I think this occurs in Russian stagings too.

38.

Macaulay. (March 7). Does the notation have Fairy no 5 (Violente) wait in first position through the opening bars, as here? Usually she is the only one who has a clear and deep révérence set to the music.

Fullington. (March 7). The notation of No. 5 begins with a rubric stating "Wait 8 bars", but does not show whether the dancer is yet onstage. No révérence is indicated, neither the rubric to give a blessing to the child, as some other variations include. When she does begin dancing, she begins from first position, so I assume Alexei reads the rubric and the starting position to mean she waits in first position during those eight bars.

39.

Macaulay. (June 14). Am I right that - whereas Candide, the first fairy to dance a variation, does a révérence to the King and Queen in the opening phrase of her variation’s music (something we don’t see in most productions) - Violente (who in most productions fills the first phrase with a run and révérence to them), the fifth, here simply stands still? Is this because Candide’s is notated but Violente’s isn’t?

Ratmansky. (June 27). The notation for fairy Violente solo starts with the remark in Russian: “Waits for 8 bars”. In the next box, she begins dancing from first position on flat en face center stage. She couldn’t be waiting for eight bars in the wings and then start on center, because she needs three to four bars to get there. And there is no arrow indicating her run from the wings in either box, like in some other notated variations. Which leads us to believe she already entered before she had to wait. It’s a guess, but I am positive that’s what it was. I love that moment: it creates a remarkable tension.                

   The notation for fairy Candide solo also doesn’t show us how she enters. She is already on point in fifth by the cradle and does her first piqué from there. It does not say she blesses the baby during the first four bars (you call it “reverence”), but she does so in all Russian versions.

   According to the notations, the “blessing” before the dance is done by Fleur-de-Farine, Miette and Lilac (Marie Petipa). Does it mean the others didn’t do also? Probably not, because the remarks in the original score suggest they all did (Wiley). But we cut the “blessings” for all fairies to save time and to be consistent. (They would have to be done in silence. Except for Candide, who, we thought, will set the tone for the rest to follow, so we didn’t need to repeat the same gesture five more times. We also cut all the bows. I might change it back for La Scala, to be more accurate. 

40.

Macaulay. (March 7). In this staging, Violente (Fairy no 5) sometimes does the finger-pointing in ways I have never seen before – notably when she keeps her arms bent at the elbow. Is this based on accounts of the Mariinsky version?

Ratmansky. (March 7). The position of the arms is taken from two photos of the original 1890 dancer (see #28 #29).

Ratmansky. (July 8). And from the image of Julia Sedova (#30) from the early 1900s.

41.

Macaulay. (March 7). Of the two notated versions of the Lilac Fairy variation, which did we see last night?

Ratmansky. (March 7). Yesterday we tried the older, Maria Petipa, version. We did it because Veronika Part had a bad foot; we didn’t work on it in details. At the Met, we'll do both variations. Today, Devon Teuscher will do the other notated version, which has no dancer’s name. It’s not clear whose it originally was.

42.

Macaulay. (May 30). The Lilac Fairy variation that Stella Abrera danced last night is remarkably similar to the one performed by the Royal Ballet, where it is attributed to Fyodor Lopoukhov. The differences are fascinating: the sissonnes are battus, the arabesques become open attitudes, the final series of pirouettes is followed by a balance in low attitude. Does the notation suggest or imply who choreographed this?

Ratmansky. (June 2). No, it doesn’t, but when you consider the names of the dancers listed in the notations, you can tell that they were done at the time when Lopoukhov was still too young to contribute choreography. (He graduated in 1905.)

43.

Macaulay. (May 30). That concluding use of a quick balance in low attitude recurs in this production: in your production, Aurora does it in her Vision Scene variation and so does someone else (I forget who). It's just the kind of period touch that takes us by surprise. Does the notation show how it should be phrased? Do you know any post-Petipa choreographic examples of it? (I don't.)

Ratmansky. (June 2). If I understand correctly, this is demi-attitude on plié, a common pose in the notations. It’s done by Aurora (Act One entrance, and Act Two Vision Scene solo), the Lilac Fairy (Prologue variation), the Diamond Fairy in Act Three, the Lilac Fairy’s attendants, and others. Sometimes  it is just a transition, so the attitude is not held. Other times, it takes a full bar (last part of Lilac Fairy solo; the middle part of Aurora’s “Vision” variation). Bournonville used it extensively. You can also see it in Paquita’s Act One pas de trois or in the trio of the odalisques in Le Corsaire.

   But post-Petipa? I can’t think of any off-hand.  

Ratmansky (July 8). Actually, I think Pierre Lacotte used this pose in his reconstruction of Saint-Leon’s pas de six from La Vivandière.

44.

Macaulay. (June 14). There’s a chain of blame for Carabosse not being invited. It's the Herald, not Catalabutte, who omitted Carabosse; your production makes this unusually clear. And Catalabutte tries to tell Carabosse that the Herald, not he, was to blame - but Carabosse wreaks her vexation on him. How clear is all this in the Stepanov or other sources?

Ratmansky. (June 27). The scroll is checked three times: the Herald, Catalabutte, the King, and the Queen are each involved at different times. But only on the third time is the absenc of Carabosse’s name discovered - when the King and Queen do the checking, as Carabosse is arriving. It’s the Herald’s fault initially, but each character – the Herald, Catalabutte, the King, and the Queen - miss the mistake while checking the list, as if under the spell. Catalabutte is to blame as chief minister, so the king rightly points at him. It’s all in the notation.

   Now, the moment when Catalabutte does not want to take responsibility and points at the Herald in front of Carabosse was improvised by the actor, but we all liked it. It made sense at the time - but became a little forced later on. Not sure we are going to keep it.

45.

Macaulay. (June 14). I once read (I forget where) that Catalabutte, after the Prologue, wears a huge, fantastic, and obvious wig to cover where no hair would grow again. Is this mentioned in any of the sources you know? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). The original libretto, printed in the yearbook of the Imperial Theatres for the 1890-1981 season says: “Catalabutte, still bald, enters wearing an odd skullcap”. Diaghilev’s synopsis does not mention it and Bakst’s designs show Catalabutte in a long wig in both Prologue and the first act.

   Here is, first, Vsevolozhsky’s 1890 design for Catalabutte in his Prologue costume (#31); next here’s Timofei Stukolkin, the original Catalabutte, in his Act I costume (#32) ; and last here is Jean Jazvinsky, the 1921 Catalabutte, in the Prologue costume (#33).

46.

Macaulay. (June 14). You give Carabosse's rats a very specific dance. Is this from the notation? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). No, it’s mine.

47.

Macaulay. (June 14). Carabosse brings a spindle to the Christening as her present. Is this from the 1890 or 1921 production? I never knew of it before de Valois's 1977 staging. 

Ratmansky. (June 27). We took it from the Royal staging. The original 1890 libretto has Carabosse say, “Perhaps I’m not one of Aurora’s godmothers, but I’d like to give her something all the same.” Beaumont’s description of the same moment in the 1939 staging is similar: “I too bring a christening gift for your child.” It’s hard to imaging Carabosse miming a sentence like this without an actual present (a spindle) in her hand. But we don’t know for sure whether it was originally there or de Valois added it at some point.  

Macaulay. (July 31). Monica Mason, who played Carabosse many dozens of times in de Valois’s 1977 production, has kindly been asking colleagues about this on my behalf. It seems that no male Carabosse at the Royal ever presented a spindle before 1977. It’s possible that Julia Farron did so; she began to play Carabosse in the 1950s, the first woman to do so at the Royal. (She especially played it in Peter Wright’s 1968-1972 production.)  In 1977, de Valois gave detailed individual coaching to three different Carabosses (Lynn Seymour, Mason, Alfreda Thorogood), always with the spindle.

48.

Macaulay. (June 14). Your Lilac Fairy, in her prophecy, does a mime gesture with which I’m not familiar. When she says that a man will come to wake Aurora, she points with both hands down her torso in a way that seems to suggest “He’s going to be dressed in a coat” or “He’ll be wearing marvelous clothes.” What does this gesture mean, and does it occur in any other ballet? 

Ratmansky. (June 27). “One handsome and noble,” the Lilac Fairy says in the notations. Our Lilac Fairies say: “Handsome and well dressed.” Lopukhov remembered Pavel Gerdt’s description of that moment: “One with the sword wearing the hat with the feather”. Our  prince has neither a sword nor a feathered hat, but he is definitely well dressed.

   There are similar gestures in ballets like Paquita, Bayadère, Giselle. Sometimes, if done with a sad look. it means the opposite: “I am poor and badly dressed” (Cinderella in the Act Three divertissement, Paquita when Lucien proposes). But with the proud look and chin up it would mean “I am well dressed, therefore rich and noble.”

Act One

49.

Macaulay. (March 7). At the start of Act One (before the curtain rises on the scene for Aurora’s birthday), this production plays more music than I ever remember hearing: do we know if this was all played in the 1890 premiere?

Ratmansky (March 7). This music was played at the original performance. We needed that amount to complete the scenery change. Because of time restrictions, we did a lot of cuts, but did not cut any of the dancing music (where there is notated choreography).

50.

Macaulay. (June 14). Your programme synopsis says that Aurora is sixteen. Doesn’t the Vzevolozhsky-Petipa scenario say she’s twenty? http://wiki.tchaikovsky-research.net/wiki/The_Sleeping_Beauty 

Ratmansky (June 27). Yes, she is twenty in Vsevolozhsky, but sixteen in Diaghilev.  

51.

Macaulay. (June 14). I've never seen the knitting women (six of them) laugh and gossip before. Is this recorded?

Ratmansky. (June 27). The notation says “Sudachat”, which is an old word for chatting and gossiping. Their laugh is not recorded specifically, but could very well be part of sudachat, which has this relaxed undertone.

52.

Macaulay. (June 14). When the King first is angry, the women entreat the Queen to soften him. Then the Queen converses with the four princes (about whether she should please with the King). Is all this detail recorded?

Ratmansky. (June 27). The notation says: “The women cry and beg the King to forgive them. The King walks back and forth in anger. The courtiers and the Queen try to come the King down. The Queen asks the king to forgive those women. The King listens and forgives them. The women run away.” The rest is our interpretation.

53.

Macaulay (March 7). How close is this Garland Waltz to the notation?

Ratmansky (March 7). The Garland Waltz is notated twice; and our version is very close  - it is what is notated - except that originally, at the Mariinsky, it was twenty-four adult couples and twelve children couples. Ours is sixteen and eight couples.

54.

Macaulay. (June 14). Your Petipa Garland Dance has much in common with the traditional Mariinsky/Konstantin Sergueyev one and with the 1981 Balanchine one, but also points of difference. Can you say where it most resembles them and where it most differs?

Ratmansky (June 27). Can’t say anything about Balanchine’s, but K. Sergeyev’s Kirov Garland Valse has all the original Petipa groupings, and most of the steps match the notation. There are differences in how the steps are executed. For example, notated ballonnés are done through développé (starting from cou-de-pied), not dégagé. Pas de basque go through demi-point, not point. Balancés are more complex rhythmically then usual (two pliés instead of one). 

   We couldn’t have the original number of adult and child couples, but we were able to keep all the formations unchanged. We even broke two vertical inside lines of kids into two lines and two diagonals as notated, which was hard to do with eight couples. 

   The youngsters are now given the same kind of garlands as the adults, just smaller, as opposed to the soft, hanging down garlands that Russian kids (myself included) always have trouble with. Lopukhov says Petipa himself cancelled the garlands for the kids, but Nikolai Sergeyev reinstalled them later on. Lopukhov also mentions the three original accessories: garlands, baskets and circlets of flowers, probably like in the Vsevolozhsky 1890 designs.

The main difference, however, is in the very first phrase of the dance. In the notation, the valse starts all the way upstage and moves downstage, filling out the space with each set of temps levés in attitude (a step missing from all Russian versions), like in waves. Traditionally, it has always been pas balancés on place for sixteen bars of music.

   There is another important difference after the kids join and go through the middle, and the horizontal lines are formed. The notation shows the sequence of rising - not descending (as it is done nowadays) - movements. Starting from the deep plié, finishing en relevé sous-sus in four counts, moving the garlands from down up, like a growing garden. The descending version is an unfortunate change that neglects the symbolic meaning of the step!

  There are also some fine and unexpected rhythmic details, like a sudden drop from point to flat (on count “four-and”) after the sous-sus just before four balancés. Or a “delayed” relevé in fifth while the men take the ladies on to the leaning pose (traditionally the relevé happens before the leaning): a delightful syncopation that adds to the rhythmic complexity.

   The whole ladies’ solo at the end of the valse is notated on point.

   And, as a rule, there is no waiting at the end of the phrase: the pace should not be interrupted by assemblé relevé or the bows in the middle of the dance.

   We also asked the men to stay still during the “cross” formation. Traditionally, they wave the garlands and do balancés. The notations only show the steps for the ladies and the kids, so it is not clear what was there originally for the men. And the bows to the King and Queen during the introduction is a new addition.

55.

Macaulay (June 14). The girls in your Garland Dance have just a little pointwork, presumably from the notation. Do we know what age the girls would have been in the 1890 production?

Ratmansky (June 27). No, we don’t.

56.

Macaulay (June 14). My colleague David Vaughan wondered if at any point Richard Hudson has taken ideas from the 1890 production. In particular, he thinks the green-and-red costumes for the eight dancing violinists are like Vsevolozhsky's for the 1890 one. Is he wrong?

Hudson (June 17).  The dancing violinists are from the 1890 production.  Alexei gave me a small black and white photograph.  I decided the colours. 

57.

Macaulay (June 14). Those eight dancing musician/pages have heeled shoes: did they wear those in the 1890 production?

Ratmansky (June 27). Yes, they did.

58.

Macaulay (June 14). Aurora’s maids of honour are often divided into two groups of four, with separate functions and steps, both in the Rose Adagio and in their dances that follow. (Since at least 1946, British and many Western productions have grouped all eight as “Aurora’s friends”, often known at the Royal Ballet as her “little friends”.) How big was the distinction in the 1890 production between these two groups?

Ratmansky (June 27). We followed the notation for the maids very closely, so we believe what you saw is what is notated. Traditionally, one group is done by shorter ladies, the other by taller ones. The shorter ones are called “young maidens” in the notation. Their costumes were of different colour. 

59.

Macaulay (July 8). This is not a question; but it seems a good moment to make this observation. One of the most discussed points is Aurora’s entrance. In the famous 1946 Sadler’s Wells Ballet production with Oliver Messel’s designs, Fonteyn and other Auroras made a sensational impression by running along the back, striking a momentary arabesque with face and arms opening to greet the court and audience, and then running right off the other side into the wings. After a pause, she then entered the stage from the next wing, dancing at speed. (This is very vividly recorded in Jessen’s composite film, made during successive 1949-55 performances of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet on tours of North America. The pause before Aurora returns to the stage is a remarkably long one.) People who love this entrance find it hard to accept Aurora entering down a flight of steps, though that’s what she did in 1890 and in several other productions. 

    In de Valois’s 1977-92 Royal Ballet production, televised in 1978 with Merle Park as Aurora, there was a similar effect; but the columns of David Walker’s scenery didn’t give space for Aurora to strike a full arabesque, whereas they did give her a space at the end to enter the main stage before reaching the wings.

   I often used to wonder: Where did the makers of the 1946 production get the idea of this run along the back of the stage? But then I remembered that Ashton told me in 1984 that his only real memory of Olga Spessivtseva’s Aurora was her entrance “along a colonnade”. You don’t have Bakst’s colonnade in your production, whereas you do have the steps for her to enter as she did in 1890. But my guess is that Diaghilev and Bakst had the imagination to dream up this quite different entrance for Aurora in 1921; and that Ashton and his British colleagues adapted it for their version of the entrance in 1946.

Ratmansky (July 8). Oh yes, I can see the excitement that could be generated by Aurora’s running through the colonnade. Was it Bakst, Diaghilev, Nijinska or Sergeyev who invented that?

   But I definitely prefer the notated original entrance: Aurora runs from the palace down the stares stage right (audience view) into the first pas de chat without any slowing down. No bourrées or révérence or port de bras on place as it is done nowadays. She is like a little goat sent free into the fields, jumping and running around happy and a little crazy. When she finally stops, the Queen comes to her and says “You’ll get tired!” I love that.

60.

Macaulay (June 14). The pas de chat in Aurora’s entrance dance have a special assemblé accentuation, especially in Isabella Boylston’s performance - a shooting quality. Is this in the notation, or is this prompted by your understanding of 1890-1910 style?

Ratmansky (June 27). Pas de chat in the notations is a mystery. The step as we know it, with both knees bent, is nowhere to be found. What we have instead  is a “Balanchine” pas de chat volé, with the front leg outstretched. Isabella Boylston kept it for her performances as Aurora, but with the rest of the cast we decided to do the usual way. It’s hard to imagine the “normal” pas de chat did not exist back then. It is seen in many surviving films. Nevertheless, that’s how pas de chat is always notated – with the stretched front leg.  

61.

Macaulay (June 14). When Aurora first dances with the fourth prince in the Rose Adagio, she tilts sideways (torso at forty-five degrees), arms en couronne, while she holds her seconde. This is a most unusual line/position. Then, in Act Three, when Lane and Cornejo do the Petipa alternative to the fish dives, this line/position recurs. Is there anything else in nineteenth-century ballet that resembles it? 

Ratmansky (June 27). This pose (tilting sideways) is our guess. In the Rose Adagio, the notation gives us en couronne arms position, 90’ degrees à la seconde (en face) and the head turned to the left. No tilting is shown, but as soon as you turn your head to the left the pose becomes more écarté, which led us towards the tilt. We might try to do without the tilt at La Scala.

  The notation for the “fish dives” diagonal does not have any indications for the arms, torso or head position. This is the only place, where the pirouette is done with high passé (by the knee). And I have to admit, we haven’t noticed it until now! The strong tilt supported by the man (usually using one hand) is characteristic for the partnering of the period. You see it in Pavel Gerdt’s drawings as well.In pictures 40, #41, #42, you see Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Nikolay Legat (Nutcracker), Pierina Legnani and Sergei Legat (Camargo), Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Fokine (Harlequinade).

62.

Macaulay (June 14).  When it comes to the first set of balances for Aurora in attitude, Royal Ballet tradition places Aurora on the opposite side of the stage when the first prince offers his hand, so that she really travels, fast, to claim his hand eagerly into piqué attitude for those balances. Your Aurora (like some other productions) is already near him, so she simply steps into piqué. The difference in attack is striking. (The Royal Ballet version tends to be much more exciting.) Is it clear whether or not she crosses the stage to take that attitude?

Ratmansky (June 27). The floor plan shows Aurora on center as she prepares for the first balance.

63.

Macaulay (June 14). I mentioned earlier (Macaulay31) the ensemble sustained first arabesque in the Rose Adagio: four of Aurora's maids of honor hold a long supported arabesque while she does the first series of balances with the four princes. This also occurs in the Royal Ballet production (film shows it in the early 1950s), but at a later point - when Aurora is held aloft by one prince). What does the notation say?

Ratmansky (June 27). Four of Aurora’s maids of honor (sometimes called “princesses” or “black ladies” in the notation - they had black costumes originally) lift their arabesques together with Aurora’s first balance in attitude, hold it during all balances, and put it down only after her supported double pirouette en dehors.

64.

Macaulay (March 7). What does the notation suggest for Aurora's Rose Adagio balances?

Fullington (March 7). Only that she does not come off point between suitors.

Ratmansky (July 28). And here is one of the non-1890, non-1921 moments in our production! We’ve given Aurora arms en couronne during her balances in the Rose Adagio.

65.

Macaulay (May 30). In this production, when Aurora is lifted by one Prince during the"Rose" Adagio, she does not do the usual sitting shoulder lift in croisé attitude devant. The parted-knee, feet-together lift you give to her is unusual. How precisely is it notated or shown?                                                                                                        

Ratmansky (June 2). Vera Trefilova (who debuted as Aurora in 1904) and Samuil Andrianov are mentioned in this fragment of notation (see #43). He is one of the four princes (called “the best”) who partner Aurora. The remark in Russian says: “Lifts Aurora by the waist. Holds on the chest. Brings down gradually.” The notation beneath shows her preparing for the lift in fifth position on flat en face. Plié. Then she is in the air in fifth with bent knees. Then she is on point, in fifth, knees stretched.

66.

Macaulay (June 14). After Aurora is held aloft by one prince, she circles on the spot in bourrées with a wonderful changing port de bras; I love the croisé arm that aims up and then stretches down (as in the Royal Ballet version). How clearly notated is this?

   (2021 footnote. Footage of Fonteyn, in the 1939 Vic-Wells production designed by Nadia Benois production, in these revolving bourrées recently surfaced on Facebook and YouTube. We may presume she is doing precisely what Sergueyev taught her.

Ratmansky (June 27). Nothing is notated but the floor plan. It shows five turns for Aurora as she bourrées downstage. Then two more turns on place. Usually a port-de-bras and a turn take four counts - so four sets (a little less in reality) plus the final bourrées en tournant make a full phrase. To fit five turns into the phrase, we had to do each in three counts. Honestly, that looked a little too modern. 

    It is also possible that she used half of the next phrase to finish the fifth set. If that is the case, it is an illustration of one remarkable tool of Petipa – to make a choreographic phrase differ in length from the musical phrase. He doesn’t use it often, but occasionally. Another example is a series of sissonnes in Aurora’s act III variation, where he replaces the fourth set with relevés retirés. Or in the farandole, where he continues with the same step (temps levé in attitude), regardless of the strong change in the music.    

67.

Macaulay (June 14). In the dance after the Rose Adagio, when four of Aurora's friends do piqués fouettés into first arabesque, their arms are at a lower angle than for other first arabesques in this ballet; the line continues the downward slope of the shoulder. Is this from notation or for another reason?

Ratmansky (June 27). The arms in the piqués fouettés are not notated, just the head positions.

68.

Macaulay (March 7). Two remarks about the piquées arabesques in the opening phrases of Aurora’s violin variation.

    First. Mary Skeaping, in the 1976 Ballet Review interview, remembered Vera Trefilova in 1921 doing these as extreme allongées arabesques, with the arm and torso leading ahead into space. She also said they were prolonged. Trefilova, who joined the Mariinsky in 1894, became an important Aurora before resigning from the company in 1910; she returned to dancing in the West 1921-26, when such people as Ninette de Valois and Arnold Haskell found her a revelation of classicism. Skeaping: “In the variation she stressed the arabesque allongée at the beginning and she stretched and stretched forward and then came out of it into attitude pose, with less emphasis on the chassé and glissade which came in between.”

   Second. Pamela May, the second Aurora after Fonteyn in the 1939 and 1946 productions, firmly remembered (in several 1997 conversations with me) that Nikolai Sergueyev in 1939 taught Fonteyn and herself to do them as piquées penchées. 1939-46 photographs (see #44) suggest that Fonteyn and May did indeed do them this way but also that they have (Fonteyn especially) tried other alternatives of the line during the 1940s. The first arabesque with the more upright back soon became the rule in the 1946 production.

Ratmansky (March 7). I’m pretty sure that extreme allongée is not notated. The solo is notated twice; and the two versions are different in details. 

    One is from 1899, from Alexander Gorsky, who wrote an essay about how to use Stepanov notation.

Fullington (March 7). Yes, this variation was published in Gorsky’s 1899 Choreography: Examples for Study. It is a piquée arabesque on the right foot (first time) facing side with the back leg extended straight at 90 degrees. That said, the notation never indicates a leg at higher than 90 degrees.

69.

Macaulay to DF) (March 7). Does that notation for those arabesques give any indication about either phrasing or torso?

Fullington (March 7). Yes, in the Gorsky the torso is forward 45 degrees. When the piqué is on the right foot, the left arm is side 45 degrees and the left arm is overhead. Later in the phrase, when the piqué is again on the right foot but facing the opposite direction, the piqueé is taken facing the corner and the back leg is bent 45 degrees (long attitude) with back arched and torso angled to the right. Arms are overhead then brought down through seconde (side).

Ratmansky (July 8). Both Gorsky and Sergeyev give us the arms sideways allongée when she prepares in plié to step into the arabesque. When she is in arabesque on point, the right arm goes up to 135’ gradually, while the left stays where it was.

70.

Macaulay (May 30). How much does the notation help with musical phrasing or timing? In the opening phrases of her Act One "violin" variation, Gillian Murphy (last night’s Aurora), like many Auroras, phrases - I would say - to the pizzicato accompaniment. Some Royal Ballet Auroras used to prolong the arabesques as if matching the solo violin's phrasing. Does the notation suggest either method is valid or just one? 

Ratmansky (June 2). There are two notations of Aurora’s act I solo, one by Gorsky, another from the main notation (N.Sergeyev). Gorsky’s was published in his 1899 “table of signes” -

Fullington (July 7). Actually, this variation is published in Gorsky’s 1899 companion piece, “Choreography: Examples for Study” -

Ratmansky (June 2). - and is extremely precise, including the arms and body positions and a musical score written above the movement notation. Both notations show that Aurora’s piquée arabesque is only held for one count, while piqué attitude is three times longer (three counts). But in some cases musical phrasing is a guess.

71.

Macaulay (May 30). Later in that solo, Aurora does four double pirouettes. The Royal Ballet tradition was to end each one with a different arm position. David Vaughan says this connected to Anatole Oboukhov's classes at School of American Ballet, which also asked dancers to end each successive pirouettes with different arms. You have Aurora end with the same arms: is this because nothing is notated for the arms there, or because the same arms are notated each time?

Ratmansky (June 2). We do the arms as notated in Gorsky’s version (Sergeyev’s does not show the arms for this diagonal). Three times pirouettes finishing in arabesque arm position, shoulder level; the fourth time, arms sideways in allongé above the head. Gorsky has three single pirouettes and one double (that’s what Diana Vishneva did in Costa Mesa), Sergeyev has all doubles.

72.

Macaulay 72 (May 30). On the other hand, the steps she does between those double pirouettes, ones I've never seen before this production, are amazingly precise - traveling changements on point, and finally ballonnés from alternately back and front. (I'm not a dancer and am probably not using quite the right words.) Are these all in the notation?

Ratmansky (June 2). Yes, in Gorsky’s version: three sets of seventeen changements and then seventeen précipités closing back and front.  Instead of changements, Sergeev’s has emboîtés, similar to what is done today, except that both knees are bent and the front foot touches the floor with demi-point, not point.

73.

Macaulay (June 14). Two questions about the changements on point that, in the Gorsky version, Aurora does between the double pirouettes:-

  Why did you choose Gorsky’s changements?

   Most Royal Auroras end the diagonal of emboîtés with a relevé retiré (arms en couronne) on the penultimate note (the musically dissonant chord), then go back on the final chord into a fourth position (a preparation for the pirouettes). The relevé retiré seems to help to prepare the pirouettes, especially when they use the music. Is there anything in the notation to suggest this? Or is it just a Royal addition?

Ratmansky (June 27).  I have a feeling Gorsky shows the original step. and it does looks more exciting.

   There are no relevés retirés in either notation.

74.

Macaulay (March 7). Later in the same variation, Aurora spreads her hands, lifts her skirts slightly, and does a step (I think it’s a piqué retiré with a small hop on point) sixteen times as she advances. Usually this is done with a slow crescendo of ports de bras; but not here (on Friday night). Can we say why?

Ratmansky (March 7). In the port de bras in Gorsky’s essay, she holds the tutu in both hands - and Alexei followed.  Today (Saturday), you will see a different version of that diagonal (Boylston and Vishneva). Each comes from a different notation.

75.

Macaulay (June 14). The eight pageboy musicians do gargouillades (left, right, left, right) on the sides of the stage while Aurora’s friends are dancing. Usually gargouillades are something for solo dances; apart from Balanchine’s Square Dance, I never knew that any choreography to use them as a group step. I presume this is in the notation. Were you surprised to discover it?

Ratmansky (June 27). We call it “demi-gargouillade” because only one leg does rond-de-jambe, not both. It is exactly the same step Prince Désiré does in his Act Three solo. but there is a possibility (as with pas de chat) that this is how they depict a normal gargouillade.

Fullington (July 7). The notation for the opening of the coda of the Pas de trois des odalisques from Le Corsaire includes steps with a rond de jambe for one leg and for two. See #45: the first step (1) is a sissonne with a double rond de jambe for the left leg. The step marked (2) appears to be a gargouillade, with a single rond de jambe for each leg.

The jeté with a rond de jambe for the leading leg is a fairly common step found in Stepanov notation.

76.

Macaulay (July 8). In this ABT Sleeping Beauty, Aurora's last entrance in Act One opens with a series of ronds de jambe sautés in an advancing diagonal, am I right? (I think it alternates with a small sissonne.)

  I'm very curious about the Royal version of this step, which I've sometimes called the most interesting step in nineteenth-century ballet. The Royal dancers make it a jeté embellishment of rond de jambe sauté, phrased in a crescendo so that each jump is larger in scale; and I have seen some ballerinas make an exciting assemblé arrival from the third and fourth jumps. Yet this complicated step began life at the Royal with Fonteyn, who was not a great jumper. So I assume that N. Sergueyev has taught it to her. She evidently went on working at it. There is a 1948-49 description, in Richard Buckle’s magazine Ballet of how she had just made it more intimately musical, so that the rond de jambe/jeté figure exactly corresponded to a triplet in the score.

   Is there any indication in the notation for this complicated jump? Do we know of any dancer before Fonteyn doing it, either at the Mariinsky or with Diaghilev?

Ratmansky (July 8). The notation for Aurora's coda in Act I (#46) shows her doing a diagonal of temps levés, changing legs and poses, front and back. During the first temps levé, her front leg is doing double rond de jambe; the second temps levé is just a simple sauté in attitude derrière effacé. And this is exactly what Cynthia Gregory does in Mary Skeaping's 1976 ABT production, as seen on video. I think you call “a jeté embellishment” what I would call “assemblé rond de jambe”. There is no assemblé or pas failli in sight in the notation.

   At some point, we thought Aurora's diagonal starts with plié in fifth, so the sauté with the rond de jambe would be a sissonne. Because that's how it looks in the notation at the first sight. Sarah Lane was the only Aurora who did it as a sissonne, jumping from two legs. 

    But now we clearly see that the right leg is bent more then the left (two crossed lines, not one, in the notation), meaning it goes through cou-de-pied, not through the fifth, even though we don't see any coup-de-pied written down. You see, the details like that are so tiny - and yet are so important.  

77.

Macaulay (May 30). Among the many steps Aurora does in her final entrance dance of Act One are renversés: are those notated?

Ratmansky (June 2). Yes.

78.

Macaulay (June 14). When Aurora begins to dance again after pricking her finger on the spindle, does the Mariinsky notation or scenario indicate her emotion? Different ABT Auroras suggested different qualities – exhilaration, feverish intoxication, confusion/anxiety.

Ratmansky (June 27). The libretto from the yearbook of the imperial theaters says: “Aurora rushes about in fear.” Petipa’s scenario, preserved in the Bakhrushin Museum, says: “mindless turning, as if she had been bitten by a tarantula.” No details are given in the notation except that Aurora falls down twice.

Act Two

79.

Macaulay (March 9). How much information is there on Bakst's designs for Act Two? I'm curious if the Hunt/Vision scene backdrop and Nymph and Aurora Vision costumes are closely or loosely modeled on Bakst originals.

Hudson (March 9).   There is very little extant material surviving for Act Two. Alexei asked me to make the decoration on the tutus to look like wet autumn leaves.

80.

Macaulay (March 7). Galifron’s lameness: is that from an account of the Mariinsky original?

Ratmansky (March 7). From a Bakst drawing. Craig Salstein and Clinton Luckett interpret it differently.

81.

Macaulay (March 7). In the Blind Man’s Buff dance, the handkerchief is removed from Galifron’s eyes halfway through the dance. Usually it’s at the end. Is this based on an account of the Mariinsky?

Ratmansky (March 7). Galifron removes the handkerchief from his face long before the end of the number, when he bumps into the man. It’s in the notation.

82.

Macaulay (June 14). As a court functionary, Galifron is a character whose function is comparable to Catalabutte; but he receives a different treatment from the courtiers, especially in your production. They tap him harshly with the whip in the Blind-Man’s Buff dance. The Prince does, too. This is a surprise. What is your source?

   And do you believe - or do older sources suggest – that this is to show us how courtly manners changed after a hundred years? 

Ratmansky (June 27). I agree that the Blind Man’s Buff is there to show the change in manners. It’s interesting that both Catalabutte and Galifron are beaten on stage by the other characters. The description of the Blind Man’s Buff in the notation uses the words like “hit with the whip,” “slap in the face,” “stick the hand muffs into the face” (we didn’t use the hand muffs). And yes, the prince participates in the game and hits Galifron’s shoulder with his whip once. 

83.

Macaulay (March 7). The farandole danced by the peasants: is that from the notation or what? Royal Ballet tradition has the courtiers joining the peasants’ line dance, but yours has the courtiers simply making arches through which the peasants dance and then doing gentle dances apart from the peasants. 

Ratmansky (March 7). Our version is exactly as it is written down.

84.

Macaulay (March 7). I didn’t always count, but I think the number of Vision corps nymphs varied between sixteen and eighteen according to the choreography. Is that Petipa or Ratmansky? 

Ratmansky (March 7). The number for the Vision adagio is sixteen throughout; then in the coda it’s supposed to be twenty-four. We couldn't have twenty-four - so, in order to sustain the trios, we added two more girls to be closer to the original idea. 

85.

Macaulay (June 14). As the Vision adagio starts, the corps of nymphs all do first arabesque for a long time (see 31 and 63). At the Royal, however, the two rows of nymphs do these arabesques towards the center of the stage – whereas your production has both facing the same way. Can you tell me why?

Ratmansky (June 14).  There are two version in the notations. One (#48) shows both lines of nymphs facing into the wings. The other (#49) has them facing the same way, which we did.

86.

Macaulay (June 14). When your Aurora, from behind Désiré (#50), leans forward on his arm as he promenades her, she rests her head - as if she’s sleeping. 

I love this, but what’s your source?

Ratmansky (June 27). Imagination. Just couldn’t resist.

87.

Macaulay (June 14). In one phrase, Désiré rocks Aurora so that she alternates between penchée and backbend in attitude front, to and fro, to and fro. To me, it’s (again) as if she’s still asleep. How clear is the notation here?

Ratmansky (June 27). The notation only shows her legwork. (In fact, it is dégagé front, not attitude, when she bends back.)

88.

Macaulay (June 14). When Aurora, at the climax of the Vision adagio, balances in the shell toe-hold, does the notation show what position she holds?

Ratmansky (June 27). It doesn’t.

   We only had a few images for the reference. The second one here, which shows Mathilde Kshessinskaya, Pavel Gerdt and Marie Petipa, is a bit puzzling. It has the prince supporting Aurora (the notation doesn’t have it) and the garlands lying on the floor instead of being held by the nymphs. Perhaps the prince just helped Aurora to step down - and that caused the nymphs to put the garlands down and back up. 

   Somehow it contradicts our understanding of this moment. We thought, when the prince wants to touch Aurora, he is separated from her by the line of the nymphs. That’s how we did it, despite this image.

   The third picture is from the Bolshoi 1899 production, staged by Gorsky presumably from the notations. (There is a legend, though, that the notations were stolen during his first rehearsal - very Bolshoi!) Both the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky pictures show nymphs wearing two different types of costumes within the group.

   Ivan Vsevolozhsky’s design for the nymph below explains what some of the corps ladies are holding in the hand: little shells and gauze shawls in imitation of water. 

89.

Macaulay (March 7). The music for the adagio of the Vision Scene ends with a few slightly different chords in this production, preparing us for the Gold Fairy music that she dances in this 1890 text. Who composed or arranged these (rising woodwind) chords (before the final pizzicati?

Fullington (March 7). This is from the 1890 production; Riccardo Drigo devised the musical transition. (See Wiley.)

90.

Macaulay (June 14). Aurora's vision scene solo, to the Gold Fairy music that was interpolated here by Petipa for the 1890 premiere, has many remarkable steps. Is that a manège of sauts de basque battus or what? How should we label them?

Ratmansky (June 27). In the “normal” saut de basque en tournant, the front leg that does the brush and battement always stays straight (stretched). Here it bends and does enveloppé. The changing of cou-de-pied might look like battu but it is not. Every saut-de-basque that I’ve seen (in Paquita as well) is notated that way. We can call it “saut de basque enveloppé” or “pas de basque sauté en tournant”. (Pas de basque with the jump is usually done with enveloppé but without the turn.)

  We know that Kshessinskaya danced this solo differently - there is a floor plan with her name on it. The first and second parts match the directions of the original, but the steps must be different. There is a mark “ronds de jambe” by the first arrow. Her variation ends with the diagonal, not the manège.

 #55.

91.

Macaulay (May 30). (This is not a question, just a point.) Pamela May told me that, in the Vision Scene coda, Aurora used to do beaten jumps as well as turns: it's good to see them! She said it was Ashton who made this change.

Ratmansky (June 2). The notation shows two double assemblés and two single pirouettes (four times). That fits the music much better than traditional cabrioles in arabesque and double pirouettes.

92.

Macaulay (May 31). David Vaughan wants me also to ask about “the evil bird above the bed”. “Are we to assume that she slept for one hundred years under the watchful (red) eye of one of Carabosse's creatures? Wouldn't it be more likely that she was guarded by the Lilac Fairy?"

Ratmansky (June 2). The eagle comes from Bakst. Even with one head, it could have been a reference to an eagle of the Russian empire (unless it’s a French Napoleonic eagle), but Lilac Fairy guards are there as well (six girls in our production, eight in the notation). Interesting that both Mariinsky and Bolshoi original photos show girls placed symmetrically around center, while the notation have all eight standing in two lines downstage left. We followed the notation.  For me, the red-eyed eagle symbolises the spell of Carabosse.

Act Three

93. 

Macaulay (for Richard Hudson) (June 14). Am I right that there were no Jewel fairies in the Diaghilev production? Is there any source in Bakst for the Jewel costuming you provide (including the headdresses)?

Hudson (June 17).  As far as I know there were no Jewel Fairies, and certainly no extant sketches. I invented these, and the tiaras.

94.

Macaulay (March 7). The costumes and masks for the Ogre and Ogress, and the costumes for Hop-o-my-Thumb: are these based on Bakst?

Hudson (March 9).  The masks and costumes of the Ogre, his wife, Hop and his brothers are based on a very blurry black and white photograph of the originals by Bakst. I chose colours inspired by paintings by Brueghel.

95.

Macaulay (June 14). So Carabosse does comes to the Wedding in this production. (Hurrah! Catalabutte can sleep easy this time.)

  In your production, Carabosse points a finger at the King as if to say “Beware!”, and the King gestures as if to say “Begone!” What are your sources for these gestures?

Ratmansky (June 27). Carabosse is only mentioned as one of the guests in the procession. There is no dialogue between her and the king at this point. What you describe must have been an improvisation. The king and other courtiers should only bow to her with respect.  

Ratmansky (July 28). Carabosse’s presence in Act Three, which is usually ignored, is an important symbolic element in the Vzevolozhsky/Petipa concept - and it makes perfect sense. She is a guest of honour, not only because no one wants her to get angry again, but also, without her, Aurora and the Prince would never have met. Carabosse is “part of the force which wills forever evil and works forever good.”

96.

Macaulay (March 7). The dances for the White Cat and Puss in Boots, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Cinderella and Prince, Hop o’my-Thumb, his Brothers, and Ogre are all slightly or very different from other versions I’ve seen: Are all of them based on the Mariinsky originals?

Ratmansky (March 7). We followed as close as possible except for Red Riding Hood, which is not notated. That one is based on the traditional text of Royal, Mariinsky and Bolshoi versions. The rest are indeed from the notations.

97.

Macaulay (May 30). One old version of the Bluebird adagio ends with the Bluebird balancing in arabesque while Princess Florine kneels - but you have the Bluebird just standing. Is that what's notated?

Ratmansky (June 2). In the notation, he finishes adagio on two feet in fifth position on demi-point.

98.

Macaulay (March 7). The costumes for Aurora and the Prince in the Wedding pas de deux: how close are these to the Bakst?

Hudson (March 9). The Pas de Deux costumes are inspired by Bakst, but very much simplified. Aurora's tutu was very heavily decorated. I've toned that down a lot.

99.

Macaulay (June 14). With reference to the Wedding adagio, Richard Buckle in Diaghilev tells a story of Vera Trefilova holding a very long balance in one performance of the 1921 production. Yet normally there are no prolonged balances in this adagio. My own guess is that this occurred early on and that her leg was low. Do you have any knowledge or ideas about this?

Ratmansky (June 27). Could it be the final balance in arabesque after she stood up from the floor?

Macaulay (July 2). I’ve found the reference. On page 395 of the 1979 paperback, Buckle writes:

Trefilova and Spessivtseva were partnered by Vladimirov, while Egorova and Lopukhova had Vilzak for their cavalier. A certain rivalry grew up, as was natural, between Spessivtseva and Trefilova, and this was exaggerated by the demonstrations of their respective partisans. One night Trefilova held a balance in the Grand Adage for what seemed like minutes. “Olga made light of this technical feat… ‘She just balances against Vladimirov’s thigh.’” This remark was repeated to Trefilova, who was furious. At her next performance “when the moment came the celebrated arabesque, Vladimirov, who had been warned beforehand, moved away to the other side of the stage, leaving Trefilova standing perfectly and most wonderfully poised on one point in a supreme arabesque position for as long as she wanted, and for that one occasion with complete disregard for the music. The audience went wild….” This was witnessed by a member of the corps de ballet, who later wrote Spessivtseva’s life.

Buckle’s “corps” source, of course is Anton Dolin.

   It’s perhaps worth observing that many British observers found Trefilova’s Aurora, despite this apparently competitive moment, to be the supreme revelation of classicism. Arnold Haskell writes about her in those terms. For Ninette de Valois (Invitation to the Ballet, 1937), it was Trefilova’s Odette in 1923 that was the great revelation. When she compared Trefilova's Odette to a drawing by Ingres, she echoed Haskell. The most important chapter of his 1934 classic book Balletomania is the chapter “The Lessons of The Sleeping Princess”, which is interesting to re-read in view of the Bakst-inspired designs in the ABT production. During this chapter, Haskell writes of different aspects of classicism, and then remarks:

By classicism I have so far meant school, but it can also mean temperament. Vera Trefilova has the true classical temperament,, as well as the training. If Pavlova is the Poussin of the dance, Trefilova is the Ingres. It was that very reason that made her performance of The Sleeping Princess so full of meaning and opened up so many new avenues for exploration. It was just because Olga Spessivtseva, the other great “discovery” of the season, danced the role with more evident warmth, and so placed something extra between the crystal purity of the part and myself, the something that made her Giselle a triumph, that it as Trefilova who moved me, and whom I shall always identify with the role.... Her logical, classical conception of the dance, logical but not cold, or so cold that it burned, made things gradually clear.

Ratmansky (July 10). These photos of Trefilova’s Aurora are wonderful.

 #59, #60, #61, #62, #63, #64. Vera Trefilova as Aurora.

Macaulay. Margot Fonteyn, referring to her historic New York debut in 1949, writes in her Autobiography of how she won America in 1949 by smiling: the radiant smiles she used as Aurora were a startling change of ballerina image on that side of the Atlantic. And that smiling warmth became definitive Aurora style. So it’s remarkable to read of Trefilova’s apparently definitive Aurora in 1921 not smiling at all, but being revelatory by means of pure form.

100.

Macaulay. (June 14.) Also in this Wedding adagio, Aurora balances with her back to the audience, and with arms en couronne. Then she opens her arms and arches back. (Somehow I don’t think this is where Trefilova did her long balance.) I presume she’s leaning on the Prince to help this, but anyway it’s a beautiful effect with all the ABT casts. What does the notation say here?

Ratmansky (June 27). This trick is taken from the pre-war film of Ballets Russes in Australia. What is described in the notation, and also in Pavel Gerdt’s drawing, we couldn’t master. Aurora is supposed to hold on to the prince’s belt with her left arm, her right arm en couronne, and then cambré back.

  #65.

  #66.

101.

Macaulay (June 14). Those lifts in the Wedding adagio with ankles crossed: does the notation specify that her legs stay in this fixed position? Or would it be possible to bend and straighten the knees during the lifts? (I'm wondering if some kind of movement, like a lifted plié, is not more satisfying to the music.)

Ratmansky (June 27). Gerdt’s 1894 drawings show a different lift with développé devant (#1):

#67.

 #68.

#69. “Diamond” lift as shown in Pavel Gerdt’s drawing for Flora’s Awakening. 

  The above picture of Elza Vill and Mikhail Obukhov (1910) and Gerdt’s drawing of the lift from Flora’s Awakening (1894) show the “diamond” lift as described in the notation. It does specify that the knees are bent until he puts her down on the floor.

Macaulay (July 8). The version of the lift that most people know in the West is the croisé développé devant. But Ashton told me in 1984 that Aurora should have her feet together, with knees parted. That, I think, is the same as he put in the Act Two pas de deux in his Cinderella (1948); and you can see Fonteyn doing it in Victor Jessen’s film of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet dancing the complete ballet in live performances between 1949 and 1955 at the New York Public Library. But around 1955 Fonteyn swapped to the développé version, which she does on a television broadcast from that time.

   For the record, there was one much later season, maybe 1986-1987, when all the Royal Ballet Auroras – probably as a result of Ashton’s urging – did the feet-together knees-parted lift. I liked it at once, and am sorry it didn’t stay. 

   I assume that Ashton, who only remembered Spessivtseva in her Act One entrance, was thinking here of Trefilova.  

#70.Diana Vishneva lifted by Marcelo Gomes in Act Three of The Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre.

102.

Macaulay (March 7). The only obvious choreographic post-1890 anachronism is the inclusion of the “fish” dives in the wedding pas de deux. Do you know (I don’t) who first devised these? Are they included here as a nod to the Bakst-style 1921-style production?

Ratmansky (March 7). No one knows who invented the fish dives. Trefilova refused to do them. Maybe it was Nijinska.  And yes, here they are a nod to the 1921 production, but for the Met we will try the original diagonal at least for one of the couples.

  There are two or three moments in the ballet where we used later additions: cavaliers lifting the fairies in the Prologue (see 7, 27) and in third-act polonaise formations (which Alexei took it from an old film of the Ballet Russe in Australia). Also yes, fish dives for Aurora and Prince in pas de deux.

Fullington (March 7). Related to the fish dives I love all the one-handed partnering. Alexei and I have discussed that topic a lot, and he believes it went out of fashion in the 1950s.

Ratmansky (July 28). Most of the supported pirouettes in our production are done with one hand. It is a very different partnering technique for both ladies and men that is never used nowadays. But the “fish dives” areusually done (and, where possible, should be done) with one hand.

Macaulay (March 09). Marcelo Gomes does the fish-dive partnering with one hand; Joseph Gorak certainly doesn’t yet.

Macaulay (July 2). I should add that I’ve now heard various word-of-mouth statements on the origins of the fish dives. Some people insist that they were invented for, and perhaps by, Spessivtseva, and certainly she is the first ballerina with whom I know they were firmly associated. Dolin, much later, apparently assured people that they came about by a felicitous accident in the 1921 rehearsals. But I’m not sure any of this is firm evidence. Dolin invented a few tales over the years; and it strikes me as possible that some Petrograd Auroras before Spessivtseva may have developed them.

Ratmansky (July 8). Since answering this question in March, I’ve found Dolin’s version of the story in his Sleeping Ballerina. He gives the honor of inventing the fish dives to Vladimirov.

103.

Macaulay (March 7). The variation for the Prince: are the steps taken from the notation for Nicholas Legat?

Ratmansky (March 7). Legat's name is mentioned in the adagio, not in the variation.

Macaulay (June 14.) Oh, and in the notation does the Prince really do twenty-four brisés volés at the end of his variation? Wouldn't the Bluebird (who’s just done twenty-two) be jealous? I’ve been told this variation for the Prince seems to be the one for (and by) Nicholas Legat, yes? Do you think this music had been choreographed before for another dancer?

Ratmansky (June 27). There is no proof it was choreographed for/by N. Legat. At first we guessed it was by him; but I just don’t know. Legat’s name is mentioned few times in the adagio, but there are no names in the variations or coda. Theoretically it could have been done by Petipa himself or Christian Johansson, Enrico Cecchetti, Mikhail Fokine, N. Legat, Mikhail Obukhov, Alexander Tchekrygin, Andrianov or even Gorsky. Or Clustine and Tikhomirov, who danced it in Moscow. The yearbook of the imperial theaters mentions Fokine and Legat as Prince Désiré and Legat in various years.

   Baryshnikov, when we discussed this variation, pointed my attention that it is unlikely the Prince would repeat the diagonal of brisés volés already done by the Bluebird. But it probably didn’t matter back then. In Act I of Don Quixote, every female soloist performs the same step (ballonné, pas de basque sauté). It is done by Kitri, the street dancer and by Kitri’s two friends at different moments. And there are other examples.  

104.

Macaulay (June 14). Most productions of Beauty give us a very different solo for the prince - a zigzag of cabrioles and piquées arabesques, then a series of double tours en l'air, finally a big manège of jumps, and so on – and call it “Petipa”. Do we know when and where this later version was first choreographed?

Ratmansky (June 27). It is said to be by Konstantin Sergeyev for his 1952 staging for the Kirov. It almost seems like he knew the notated variation. The original coda for the Prince was demonstrated by him during one of the seminars in Leningrad in the ‘80s. Fortunately it was filmed. That’s where we took the Prince’s coda from.

105.

Macaulay (March 7). Aurora’s variation features an advancing diagonal of sixteen repeated steps. Usually (a) they are petits développés (b) they are accompanied by a gradual crescendo of wrist/eye/arm/torso/head coordination. Mary Skeaping in Ballet Review remembered Trefilova doing (a) and (b), starting (b) very low and small. (“She got down very low with her arms while she did that little développé series across the diagonal on the points…. She stayed quite low for a longer time on the way across, and it was absolutely magical!”)

  Here, however, the step is slightly different, without a petit développé - and with no upper-body movement at all. Is this based on descriptions of the Mariinsky?

Ratmansky (March 7). The difference is not développés but dégagé and no plié at all.

106.

Macaulay (June 14). Are there any Russian folk references in any of the Beauty choreography? Some sources claim that, in the big diagonals of repeated steps in Aurora's Acts I and III variations, the arm movements are folk references. 

Ratmansky June 27). I have heard about the folk origins of Aurora’s Act III port de bras (the big diagonal) from one senior ballerina in Kiev, Raissa Khilko. That seems a very “Lopukhov” idea: he was a noted champion of “Russianness” in classical ballet.

    To my ear, though, all Aurora’s music sounds deliberately French. Lubov Egorova’s description of this diagonal (told by Maina Gielgud) was: “Aurora’s telling the story of how she grew up.” That would explain bending at the beginning, a certain sweetness to it (as if speaking to a child), and en dehors movements of the hands (as if showing, presenting something).

Macaulay (July 1). Oh yes - I remember Maina Gielgud telling that Egorova story in her 1978 London show Steps, Notes and Squeaks, in which she rehearsed the Act III pas de deux with Svetlana Beriosova coaching her as Aurora. As I recall, both Gielgud and Beriosova knew there were several interpretations for these movements.

   (July 28) Pamela May recalled in 1999 that, over the years, the Sadler’s Wells Ballet had used both inward and outward circling of the hands in that diagonal. If so, that suggests that Fonteyn consulted other Russian sources after first learning the role from Nicholas Sergueyev. Fonteyn does mentions having consulted Preobranskaya, Karsavina, and Vera Volkova in Keith Money’s The Art of Margot Fonteyn. Lesley Collier recalls that Beriosova in 1978 coached the arms in the Act Three diagonal as a czardas - whereas Ashton, who coached her in 1977, wanted them the way Skeaping describes Trefilova, starting low and staying low and small for a long time, with the torso inclining intimately toward them. I far preferred the Ashton; she, the Beriosova.

107.

Macaulay (July 2). David Vaughan saw the 1939-45 Vic-Wells production of The Sleeping Princess by Nicholas Sergeyev a few times. He recalls distinctly that virtually the only dancing done by the Prince (Robert Helpmann) was in the coda of the Act Three pas de deux, and was executed in heeled shoes. (In the 1946 production, as in Diaghilev’s 1921 I think, this was replaced by the Three Ivans.)

  Is there any evidence that Prince Désiré danced in heeled shoes in the notation?

Ratmansky (July 2). Unfortunately, the Prince's coda is not notated.

Macaulay (July 3). David Vaughan also remarks “The coda to the Act 3 pas de deux is definitely a Russian dance, so Helpmann did a quasi-folk dance. De Valois also used that music for the Three Ivans in her 1946 Covent Garden production. Then, when that music was given back to Désiré (Michael Somes?), she replaced it with the Trepak from Casse-Noisette, which was still not in the Covent Garden repertory.”

108.

Macaulay (March 7). Did Petipa ever choreograph the Act III Sarabande?

Fullington (March 7). We think he did for the first performance (per Wiley's source notes), but we don't know how long it remained. It is not notated.

109.

Macaulay (March 7). In the Act Three coda, does the Stepanov really have Aurora and the Prince return to the repeat/extension of the Bluebird music? Before the re-entry of Tom Thumb and his brothers?

Fullington (March 7). The notation doesn't state where in the music the various entrances occur, but it does give the order of entrances. Aurora and Prince follow Blue Bird and Florine and precede Tom Thumb, et al. For some sequences, the number of musical bars the passage fills is given, but not which bar numbers in the score. Wiley does not state whether the violin repétiteur included annotations about the mazurka entrances, but he does give the bars that were cut from the various sources score in Petersburg. I marked a score with these cuts (and all other notes from Wiley) for Ratmansky's use.

110.

Macaulay (March 7). At the end of Act Three, is all the regrouping for a final tableau (Lilac and Carabosse, King and Queen, Aurora and Prince) based on any previous production in particular? (The 1890 one had Apollo in the guise of Louis XIV, which doesn’t happen here.)

Ratmansky (March 7). Final tableau.... All the characters on stage. Their position is taken from the original photo from 1890. Except there is no Apollo, and the Bakst characters are added to the photo.

111.

Macaulay. (May 30.) Petipa and Vzevolozhsky seem to have wanted “Apollo dressed as Louis XIV”. Why don’t you give us this?

Ratmansky. (July 20). In our final tableau, centre stage is occupied by Aurora and the Prince, surrounded by the Jewels pas de quatre, representing wealth. Behind them, we added the Lilac Fairy and Carabosse. Those two were originally part of the backstage picture (played in 1890 by substitutes: both Marie Petipa and Cecchetti were busy, with Cinderella and Bluebird) with Apollo riding his chariot above everybody. Following Bakst’s set design, we didn’t find any place for Apollo to be seen and dominate the picture.

The finale is not notated, by the way.

#73. Finale of Act Three of The Sleeping Beauty. Photo: Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre.

112.

Macaulay (May 30). When Teatro alla Scala presents this production this autumn, will further changes be made? How many casts are planned there?

Ratmansky (June 2). Most likely. For example, the transition from the Act III divertissement into the grand pas de deux is still not satisfactory.

  There is one little bit of notated choreography that we could not use – a variation for Gold and Sapphire fairies after the adagio for Aurora and Désiré, to the music for the Prince’s solo. It was probably performed until the part of Désiré was taken away from Pavel Gerdt. 

   Here is what Legat had to say in his memoirs: “a genius for women’s solos, Petipa rarely set men’s dances well. He knew this, and did not object to our consulting Johannsen about them, while in Petipa’s later ballets I set a good many of the men’s solos and pas de deux.” He says so right after describing Petipa’s process during Sleeping Beauty and seems to be excluding Sleeping Beauty from those “later ballets” he set men’s solos for. So I wouldn’t attribute the notated solo to Legat. Anyway, a variation for Gold and Sapphire fairies could be used as an introduction for the pas de deux (it’s the same 6/8). We will see. As for the casts at La Scala – don’t really know. There will be three at least.

    I hope to be able to say more about Petipa's choreography after we’ve worked at La Scala. So far, this has been one of the most satisfying professional experiences I ever had. An endless inspiration.

#1. A page from Nicholas Sergueyev’s notation score of The Sleeping Beauty in the Harvard Theatre Collection

#2. Marie Petipa and Anna Johansson with pages in the original 1890 Sleeping Beauty.(See question #3.)

#3.Marie Petipa and Anna Johansson with pages in the original 1890 Sleeping Beauty. (See question #3.)

#4. Tamara Karsavina as Medora in Le Corsaire. See question #3

#5. Tamara Karsavina in the title role of Paquita.. 

#6. Pierina Legnani in arabesque. (See question #15.)

#7. Olga Preobrazhenska in arabesque with Nikolai Legat.(See question #15.)

#8. Agrippina Vaganova in arabesque. (See question #15.)

#9. Ekaterina Geltzer in arabesque. (See question #15.)

#10. Julia Sedova in arabesque. (See question #15.)

#11. Arabesque ouverte as shown in a French 1890 textbook. (See question #15.)

#12. Arabesque croisée as shown in a French 1890 textbook. (See question #15.)

#13. Arabesque as shown in a French 1890 textbook, very much along the lines of Carlo Blasis. (See question #15.)

#14. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for Fairy Candide (the first to dance a variation). (See question #25.)

#15. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for Fairy Fleur de Farine (who dances the second variation). (See question #25.)

#16. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for Fairy Miettes-qui-tombent (the third to dance a variation). (See question #25.)

17: Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for Fairy Canari (who dances the Prologue’s fourth variation). (See question #25.)

#18. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for Fairy Violente (the fifth to dance a variation, often known as the “finger” variation). (See question #25.)

#19. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s design for la Fée aux Lilas or Lilac Fairy (dancing the sixth variation).(See question #25.)

#20. Prologue. The fairy godmothers, three standing and three kneeling; five of the six fairy cavaliers, standing. Photo: Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre. (See question #28.)

#21. The original Fairy Violente and her page, Vera Zhukova and Platon Karsavin (Tamara’s father). (See question #29.)

#22. In attitude with arms en couronne, a slight tilt toward the bent leg as shown in the Carlo Blasis handbook The Code of Terpsichore. (See question #29.)

#23. In attitude, again a slight tilt toward the bent leg as shown in the Carlo Blasis handbook The Code of Terpsichore. (See question #29.)

24. Iuliana Lopatkina in Swan Lake, showing the same slight inclination of head and upper body back toward the raised leg en attitude. (See question #29.)

#25. Six fairy godmothers in the Diaghilev 1921 production of The Sleeping Princess. Left to right as identified in the December 1921 Dancing Times: Bronislava Nijinska, Lubov Egorova, Lydia Lopokova, Felia Doubrovska, Vera Nemchinova, and Lubov Tchernicheva. (Richard Buckle, in In Search of Diaghilev, identifies the second as Ludmila Schollar. He also identifies the photographer as Miss Peggie Cochrane, Stage Photo Company.) The Diaghilev production featured seven fairy godmothers; it remains uncertain why one of them, Lydia Sokolova, was omitted from this photograph. Possibly this is just a publicity photograph taken when Sokolova was unavailable. (See question #32.)

 #26. Prologue adagio: Sergueyev’s original score. (See question #32.)

 #27. Prologue adagio: Sergueyev’s revised notation (right) from the 1920s with altered number of dancers. (See question #32.)

#28. Julia Sedova as Fairy Violente.. (See question #40.)

#29. Julia Sedova as Fairy Violente, demonstrating the idiosyncratic port de bras used by this character (in her variation alone) in Ratmansky’s production. (See question #40.)

#30. Julia Sedova as Fairy Violente. (See question #40.)

#31. Ivan Vsevolozhsky’s 1890 design for Catalabutte in his Prologue costume. (See question #40.)

#32. Timofei Stukolkin, the original Catalabutte, in his Act I costume. (See question #40.)

#33. Jean Jazvinsky, the Catalabutte of the 1921 Diaghilev Sleeping Princess, in wig and costume for the Prologue. (See question #40.)

#34. Original designs for the Garland Dance in the 1890 Sleeping Beauty production. (See question #54.)

#35. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s designs for the Sleeping Beauty production. (See question #54.)

#36. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s designs for the Sleeping Beauty production. (See question #54.)

#37. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s designs for the Sleeping Beauty production. (See question #54.)

#38. Photograph of a dancing violinist in the 1890 Sleeping Beauty production. (See question #56.)

#39. Richard Hudson’s costume design for the dancing violinists in the American Ballet Theatre production. (See question #56.)

 #40. Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Nikolay Legat in The Nutcracker. (See question #61.)

#41. Pierina Legnani and Sergei Legat in Camargo. (See question #61.)

 #42. Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Fokine in Harlequinade. (See question #61.)

#43. A fragment of notation for the Rose Adagio, recording Vera Trefilova’s being lifted by Samuil Andrianov (“the best” of the four princes). (See question #65.)

#44. Margot Fonteyn in piquée penchée arabesque in the opening zigzag of Aurora’s Act One violin variation, in the 1939 Vic-Wells production staged by Nicholas Sergueyev with designs by Nadia Benois: Fonteyn subsequently danced a more orthodox first arabesque here, but this photograph and others confirm Pamela May’s memory that Sergueyev taught this penchée. (See question #68.)

#45.The notation for the opening of the pas de trois of odalisques in Le Corsaire.

#46.The notation for the jumping diagonal with which Aurora makes her final entrance in Act One. (See question #76.)

#47. Gillian Murphy in the diagonal with which Aurora makes her final entrance in Act One of the Ratmansky production for American Ballet Theatre. (See question #76.)

#48. One notation for a sequence in the Vision Scene adagio, showing both columns of nymphs facing the same way. (See question #85.)

#49. Another notation version for the same passage as #48, showing both columns facing into the wings. (See question #85.)

#50. Hee Seo and Cory Stearns in the Act Two Vision Scene of The Sleeping Beauty: Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre. (See question #86.)

#51. This image shows the sea-shell toe-hold with which Aurora took a balance in the Vision Scene. The Lilac Fairy stands on the left, Prince Désiré on the right. In the 1990s, Julia Farron recalled that Nicholas Sergueyev reproduced this effect in his 1939 Vic-Wells production. (See question 88.)

#52. This photograph of the same moment shows Mathilde Kschessinskaya (Aurora) being supported by Pavel Gerdt (not shown by the notation), while Marie Petipa (Lilac Fairy) stands on the left.(See question 88.)

#53. A photograph of the same Vision Scene climactic moment as staged by Gorsky at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, from the notation of the Maryinsky production.(See question 88.)

#54. Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s sketch for the costume worn by one of the nymphs in the Vision Scene. (See question 88.)

55.Notation for Mathilde Kschessinskaya’s alternative version of Aurora’s variation in the Vision Scene. (See question 90.)

#56.Leon Bakst’s design for Aurora’s bedchamber before the Awakening.

#57.Photograph of the original Maryinsky production, with female corps de ballet lining the stage before the Awakening.

#58.Photograph of the first Bolshoi production, with female corps de ballet lining the stage before the Awakening.

#59. Vera Trefilova as Aurora in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#60. Vera Trefilova as Aurora, with Pierre Vladimirov as Prince Désiré, in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#61. Vera Trefilova as Aurora in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#62. Vera Trefilova as Aurora in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#63. Vera Trefilova as Aurora in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#64. Vera Trefilova as Aurora in the 1921 Diaghilev production, The Sleeping Princess. (See question #99.)

#65. Pavel Gerdt’s drawing of one partnering effect in the Act Three Wedding adagio for Aurora and Désiré. (See question #100.)

#66. The notation for the same moment (#65) in the Wedding adagio. (See question #100.)

#66. Pavel Gerdt’s 1894 drawings of lifts in the Wedding adagio for Aurora and Désiré. See question #101.

#67. Elsa Vill and Mikhail Oboukhov in the “diamond” lift. (See question 101.)

#68. Pavel Gerdt’s drawings of a “diamond” lift in Flora’s Awakening. See question #101.

#69.Marcelo Gomes holding Diana Vishneva in a “fish” lift in the Act Three wedding pas de deux in the American Ballet Theatre Ratmansky production. (See question 102.)

#70.A photograph of the Sleeping Beauty finale in the original Maryinsky Theatre production. (See questions 110-111.)

#71.Ivan Vzevolozhsky’s designs for the final set of the 1890 production of The Sleeping Beauty.

#72. The finale of Act Three as staged by Alexei Ratmansky for American Ballet Theatre. Photograph: Gene Schiavone, American Ballet Theatre. (See questions 110-111.)