Classic Beauty

The curtain rises on a fairy-tale and the theatre around me all but disappears. There is the sensation that I am turning the pages of Charles Perrault’s 1697 telling of Sleeping Beauty. That the clock has been rewound. That I am within a castle’s courtyard, surrounded by a succession of contiguous white arches set against viridescent and ordered vegetation. The palette is plucked from the Baroque because I am now, like the characters, in the Baroque period. It is fantasy, beauty, and embellishment, but with a distinct made of paper feel. The sky overhead, a perfect shade of blue on the page. And the costuming of those gathered reflects a blue-sky day. The royal attendants of the Stuttgart Ballet are wearing satin gowns and fitted jackets as if fashioned by the gentle air currents, and their white wigs, a cumulus upon their heads. Marcia Haydée’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” presented by the Australian Ballet, at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne, is a magical fable. It has been some fifty years since the invited company, the Stuttgart Ballet, were last here and the effect is entrancing. Unlike Carabosse, my invitation was received, and the opportunity to lose myself in the classic is one I heartily accept.

Performance

The Stuttgart Ballet: “Sleeping Beauty”

Place

Regent Theatre, Melbourne, October 10, 2026

Words

Gracia Haby

The Stuttgart Ballet in “Sleeping Beauty.” Photograph by Kate Longley

With choreography by none other than Princess Aurora herself, Haydée, after Marius Petipa, and refined and masterful stage and costume design by Jürgen Rose, this “Sleeping Beauty” is generous with its double tours and high assemblés. It is bright, and light on mime. Dance is given space to breathe. It is a celebration of subtle tonal gradations. In the folds of a paper theatre, green is never merely green, but a recognition of a yellow or blue undertone, and it is accented by peach and mulberry or lavender and ice. As one by one the fairies appear to bestow their various gifts upon Aurora, the effect is one of a hand-coloured lithograph coming to life. From soloist Mizuko Amemiya’s the Fairy of the Crystal Fountain to demi soloist Aoi Sawano’s the Fairy of the Golden Vine, delicate colour transitions add to how I read the variations. As Amemiya repeatedly changes her balance, but never cracks, Sawano’s arm movements bristle with electricity.

While this might be a well-known tale about Aurora and her Prince Désiré, embraced in the beauty of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, this is, at its heart, a contest between good and evil, with good being represented by the unwavering Lilac Fairy and evil by the unmistakeable Carabosse. Demi soloist Alicia Torronteras as the lustrous in appearance, steadiness in demeanour Lilac Fairy and soloist Martino Semenzato in his debut as Carabosse are the opposing forces of positive and negative upon which the ballet rests. To Haydée, this timeless tale “has a great deal to do with us as humans” for “we all of have something of both within us.”[1] It is which voice we choose to listen to, as opposed to the gifts bestowed upon us, be they the Crystal Fountain Fairy’s honesty or the falling breadcrumbs of good fortune, as sprinkled by the Fairy of the Woodland Glades. The choices we make are what shape us.

The Stuttgart Ballet in “Sleeping Beauty.” Photograph by Kate Longley

As such, Semenzato’s Carabosse looms large, literally, a towering form of darkness. Having not been invited, to the christening, they are slighted, and how. Carried aloft, Semenzato transforms himself into a mountain with the aid of Carabosse’s impossibly long cloak. Carabosse’s cloak is rarely worn, rather it is always in the service of consuming Carabosse. It hangs, pools, engulfs. Larger than life. And Carabosse is a long-haired shapeshifter, whose hair is a whip. Befittingly, their arrival signals not just a change in the score, but to the kingdom’s very sky. The world is ablaze. A sepia wash eats at the colour and reminds me of the thick haze of bushfire smoke, when skies overhead glow orange with warning. For her choreographic debut, in 1987, Haydée wanted her Carabosse to be the only character absorbed by the colour black; “a magician, . . . an outsider,” every element ensuring they can “never truly belong among the others.”[2]

By keeping the set confined to the one view, the passage of time is also clearly denoted. The potted Prologue roses have become overgrown and cover the arcading in the autumnal second act. For the jubilation of the third act, Aurora’s wedding, order is once more restored, but the garden is now in full flower and the evening is ripe for a procession of characters from Red Riding Hood to a newcomer, Ali Baba and four jewels, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Amethyst (four of the aforementioned Fairies who transfigure during interval). The “enclosed, almost square horizon, without side entrances” further suggests the story book, and the “light comes only from above and from the sides.”[3] To the autumn gloaming, I see the sun prepare to duck beneath the covers, as the forest beyond gradually becomes a silhouette. Seated for the wedding, lighting by Dieter Billino suggestive of a heady summer’s eve, picks out the iridescent, feathery blue hues in the Bluebird and the Bluebird Princess, Ferlito Riccardo and Sawano. They flit, alight, as divertissements ought, perching momentarily on a beam of light.

The Stuttgart Ballet in “Sleeping Beauty.” Photograph by Kate Longley

Principals Daiana Ruiz, in her debut as Aurora, and Martí Paixà, as her prince, ensure, with a little further reassurance and grounding from the Lilac Fairy, that while evil is never far from the picture plane, it need not steal your thunder. As Ruiz effortlessly transitions from carefree to regal composure, with graceful port de bras, together, they are luminous and cast their own unified ring of connection and poise. Just as the theatre fell away for me upon arrival, for Ruiz and Paixà, the stage is young loves alone. And just as it should be, Aurora’s suitors from the North, South, East, and West, from the earlier, infamous Rose Adage, barely stood a chance. Though Haydée gives them ample room to spellbind with their classical vocabulary, and has her Aurora remain on the stage to watch her compass of four suitors. “I told every dancer who performed Aurora: ‘You have to stay on stage and watch, because these four princes are dancing for you!’”[4]

As Ruiz dives into Paixà’s arms, the enchantment, complete, though it comes with a warning: you’d best keep your eyes open. The inkblot of Carabosse remains.

Gracia Haby

Using an armoury of play and poetry as a lure, Gracia Haby is an artist besotted with paper. Her limited edition artists’ books, and other works hard to pin down, are often made collaboratively with fellow artist, Louise Jennison. Their work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and state libraries throughout Australia to the Tate (UK). Gracia Haby is known to collage with words as well as paper.

footnotes

Marcia Haydée quoted in the Stuttgart Ballet’s “The Sleeping Beauty”, presented by the Australian Ballet program, exclusive Melbourne season, 2026, 23
Marcia Haydée in interview with Angela Reinhardt, ‘The most important ballet of my life’, the Stuttgart Ballet’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” presented by the Australian Ballet program, 2026, 35
Marcia Haydée in interview with Angela Reinhardt about her staging of “The Sleeping Beauty” with two intervals, ‘The most important ballet of my life’, the Stuttgart Ballet’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” presented by the Australian Ballet program, 2026, 41
Marcia Haydée in interview with Angela Reinhardt about which parts of the choreography are hers and how she choreographed in Petipa’s style, ‘The most important ballet of my life’, the Stuttgart Ballet’s “The Sleeping Beauty,” presented by the Australian Ballet program, 2026, 37

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Classic Beauty

Gracia Haby

footnotes

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