Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, the Choreographer’s Latest Re-Imagining of a Ballet Classic, Airs on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances, Friday, April 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS

Comment Off 27 Views

 

Website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/

 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GreatPerformances

 

Twitter: @GPerfPBS

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, the Choreographer’s Latest Re-Imagining of a Ballet Classic,

 

Airs on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances,

 

Friday, April 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS

 

 

 

Award-winning production comes to public television after triumphant premiere in London in 2012 and U.S. tour this past fall

 

 

 

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty sees the popular choreographer return to the music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky to complete the trio of the composer’s ballet masterworks that started in 1992 with Nutcracker! and, most famously, in 1995, with the international hit Swan Lake. The ballet, on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances, airs Friday, April 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS. (Check local listings.)

 

Perrault’s timeless fairy tale, about a young girl cursed to sleep for 100 years, was turned into a legendary ballet by Tchaikovsky and choreographer, Marius Petipa, in 1890.

 

Bourne takes this date as his starting point, setting the christening of Aurora, the story’s heroine, in the year of the ballet’s first performance; the height of the fin-de-siècle period when fairies, vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination. As Aurora grows into a young woman (Hannah Vassallo), we move forwards in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical golden age of long summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes. Years later, awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day; a world more mysterious and wonderful than any Fairy story.

 

Matthew Bourne’s haunting new scenario is a gothic fairy tale for all ages; the traditional tale of good vs. evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, across the decades, that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.

 

 

 

Cast:

 

 

 

Princess Aurora

 

Hannah Vassallo

 

 

 

Leo

 

Dominic North

 

 

 

Count Lilac

 

Christopher Marney

 

 

 

Carabosse / Caradoc

 

Adam Maskell

 

 

 

King Benedict

 

Edwin Ray

 

 

 

Queen Eleanor

 

Kerry Biggin

 

 

 

Miss Maddox

 

Daisy May Kemp

 

 

 

The Fairies

 

Sophia Hurdley

 

Mari Kamata

 

Katy Lowenhoff

 

Liam Mower

 

Joe Walkling

 

 

 

WITH

 

 

 

Danny Collins, Pia Driver, Phil Jack Gardner, Tom Jackson Greaves, Nicole Kabera, Kate Lyons, Leon Moran, Luke Murphy, Ashley Shaw, Danny Reubens, Chris Trenfield

 

 

 

Bourne – dubbed “the most popular choreographer of theatrical dance in the Western World” by The New Yorker — works again with three of his regular collaborators, and the Associate Artists of his company New Adventures: the Tony and Olivier award winning designers, Lez Brotherston (set and costumes), Paule Constable (lighting) and Paul Groothuis (sound). New Adventures, the resident contemporary dance/theater company of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, annually undertakes extensive country-wide touring, appearing at more venues and giving more performances each year than any other UK dance company. Bourne has been its Artistic Director for 25 years.

 

The production was honored with multiple nominations in various awards competitions, winning Best Dance Production at the Manchester Theater Awards last year, Bourne taking the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement at the National Dance Awards in 2012. In covering the U.S. tour, The Wall Street Journal enthused, “Bourne’s vivid update is a prime example of the imagination and originality that have marked the choreographer’s dance productions,” while The New York Times declared, “This is Bourne at his best – a masterful storyteller.”

 

Left to right: Caradoc and Princess Aurora (Ben Bunce & Hannah Vassallo). Photo Credit: Simon Annand

 

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty is a Leopard Films/Argonon Production for BBC and THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET with the assistance of The Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was directed for television by Ross MacGibbon. Conductor: Brett Morris. Managing Director of New Adventures: Robert Noble. Executive Producer for BBC: Greg Sanderson. Executive Producer for Leopard Films: Todd Austin. Producer: Fiona Morris. For Great Performances, Joan Hershey and John Walker are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

 

Great Performances is funded by the Anne Ray Charitable Trust, the Irene Diamond Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Rosalind P. Walter, The Agnes Varis Trust, The Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Lewis “Sonny” Turner Fund for Dance, and PBS.

 

Visit Great Performances Online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information about this and other programs.

 

###

 

 

 

About WNET

 


As New York’s flagship public media provider and the parent company of
THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and operator of NJTV, WNET brings quality arts, education and public affairs programming to over 5 million viewers each week. WNET produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Charlie Rose and a range of documentaries, children’s programs, and local news and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking series as Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase and provides tools for educators that bring compelling content to life in the classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state’s unique culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJTV News with Mike Schneider and MetroFocus, the multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region. WNET is also a leader in connecting with viewers on emerging platforms, including the THIRTEEN Explore iPad App where users can stream PBS content for free.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About the author

Free Newsletter Updated Daily