Text: Frana Kisch
As a dancer, Marcia Haydée inspired great choreographers such as John Cranko, Maurice Béjart and John Neumeier and directed the Stuttgart Ballet herself for 20 years. Now the inter national luminary is staging her own version of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty” at the Staatsballett Berlin. Denied an invitation to the christening, the fairy Carabosse curses Princess Aurora – danced by Polina Semionova at the premiere – and prophesies her death. Under a spell cast by the Lilac Fairy, the princess falls asleep and can only be saved by the kiss of a prince. That’s the classic story. Yet even the contemporary casting of the fairy Carabosse with the dancer Dinu Tamazlacaru situates Haydee’s “Sleeping Beauty” in a long line of tradition: at the premiere in 1890, the role of the evil fairy was also danced by a ballerino – Enrico Cecchetti. The Berlin reinterpretation of the classic refrains from drawing clear boundaries between good and evil; instead, Marcia Haydée chooses to explore the ambivalence of evil through the figure of the fairy Carabosse.