Finding equilibrium Boston Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty BY JEFFREY GANTZ
	The Sleeping Beauty Music by Peter Tchaikovsky. Choreography by Marius Petipa, with additions by Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton. Sets and costumes by David Walker. Lighting by Mikki Kunttu. The Boston Ballet Orchestra conducted by Jonathan McPhee. Presented by Boston Ballet at Boston's Wang Theatre through May 15.

Fairy tales balance between explaining the world to us and protecting us from it. In the ballet version of The Sleeping Beauty, Aurora’s fate hangs in the balance between the six Good Fairies, who try to protect their godchild from pain, from sex (including menstruation and childbirth), and from death, and Bad Fairy Carabosse, who "condemns" her to life, one in which the right Prince might come along just once every 100 years. Marius Petipa’s choreography for The Sleeping Beauty’s 1890 St. Petersburg premiere finds the 20-year-old Aurora balancing, in the famous Rose Adagio, between dependence, as she hangs in turn on the arm of each suitor, and independence. The introduction to Peter Tchaikovsky’s score balances between the opening heroic martial outburst and the tender, lyrical reassurance that follows; only later do you realize that these themes, which might seem to represent the Prince and Aurora, actually belong to Carabosse and the Lilac Fairy, and that the ballet isn’t so much a battle between them as it is a balancing act.

Like any company that performs The Sleeping Beauty, Boston Ballet has to find a balance between explaining the world to us (art) and protecting us from it (entertainment). The company’s previous three presentations, in 1993, 1996, and 2001, balanced between London and St. Petersburg, marrying sets and costumes it had acquired from the Royal Ballet with Petipa’s choreography as staged by Anna-Marie Holmes. The current production reunites those sets and costumes with the Ninette de Valois’s staging for the Royal, which descends from Nicholas Sergeyev’s 1939 production with additions by Valois and Frederick Ashton.

The biggest differences are in the characters of Carabosse and the Prince (usually Désiré, here Florimund). The original Carabosse was a drag role played by Enrico Cechetti, and that’s how it’s usually cast; the Royal has seen memorably flamboyant interpretations by Frederick Ashton and Anthony Dowell. Here the part is divided between company assistant ballet master Jennifer Glaze and senior artist Viktor Plotnikov, but in neither case is it flamboyant. Whereas the Petersburg Gazette reported of the premiere that Carabosse’s rats devoured Catalabutte’s hair after she’d torn it out, here she contents herself with snapping her fingers in the ear of the hapless steward who forgot to invite her to Aurora’s christening. And at the end of Act II, she quails before the Lilac Fairy, scarcely putting up a fight. In most versions, the Prince makes a show of defeating her before entering the castle; here she’s off stage before the Prince even arrives, so all he has to do is follow the Lilac Fairy as she unlocks the great gate, dispels the forest, and points the way to the sleeping Aurora — and even then she has to cue him about that kiss.

Throw in a Garland Dance that replaces family frolicking with a genteel geometry for ladies only and you have a Sleeping Beauty that seems unbalanced, too much Lilac Fairy and not enough Carabosse. Patricia Ruanne, who staged this production for Boston Ballet, might answer that Carabosse has no real power to oppose the Lilac Fairy, so her bluster and posturing are just empty theatrics, and that the Prince wins Aurora not with swordplay but with love, so there’s no need for a sham fight. For all that it’s lucidly mimed, this Royal Beauty tells its story through dance, not dramatics. And the Boston Ballet Orchestra under Jonathan McPhee balances the Lilac-like doings on stage with a Carabossian account of the score that doesn’t stint on thorns and spindles. All the same, the scène that follows Aurora’s departure in Act II, a minute of music that Tchaikovsky marked "Allegro agitato," calls for some Princely pyrotechnics — at the very least a tour jeté or two. If he’s going to win the girl with his dancing, then let him dance.

Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the Imperial Theatres under Tsar Aleksandr III, conceived The Sleeping Beauty as an homage to the court of "Sun King" Louis XIV, during whose reign Charles Perrault published his Contes de ma Mère l’Oye ("Mother Goose Stories"), which included the Sleeping Beauty. That’s why the curtain rises on a French palace of the 17th century, with the male courtiers in heavy black wigs. (It’s also why Tchaikovsky used the tune "Vivre Henri IV" for the Apotheosis: it pays tribute to Louis’s grandfather, the founder of the Bourbon line.) David Walker’s palace-as-pavilion draws its sensibility from the signal French painter of this period, Jean Antoine Watteau: rich and massive in its interior, gauzy and dreamy in its panorama of sky. Vsevolozhsky’s vision of this era as a nobler, gentler time would benefit from better deportment on the part of the male supernumeraries — the Sun King would never have countenanced so much slouching.

The Prologue, which takes place at baby Aurora’s christening, sees the six Fairy godmothers arrive and perform their variations before a peal of thunder and a flash of lightning remind everyone who was left off the guest list. Petipa gave the first five Fairies somewhat eccentric names — Candide, Coulante ("Flowing"), Miettes-qui-tombent ("Beadcrumbs That Fall"), Canari-qui-chante ("Canary That Sings"), Violente — that at least reflect the character of Tchaikovsky’s music; this production gives them air-freshener substitutes like "Crystal Fountain" and "Woodland Glade." Last Thursday’s opening-night group looked tentative and a little tight, Sacha Wakelin meticulous but also self-conscious as Candide, Heather Myers precise but not flowing as Coulante, Lia Cirio’s Breadcrumb without much pop in her signature temps de flèche, Melanie Atkins too gentle for finger-pointing Violente; only Rie Ichikawa, her face more expressive than usual, was sufficiently animated as Canary. The line-up that performed Friday evening and Saturday afternoon was better, Misa Kuranaga an even more darting Canary, Vilija Putriute (Friday) and Kimberly Uphoff (Saturday) all regal amplitude and innocence as Candide, Kelley Potter a tightly sprung Coulante, Tempe Ostergren a piquant Breadcrumb, Kathleen Breen Combes a sassy, stabbing Violente. By Friday, the orchestra seemed less tentative, or at least a shade faster; that may have helped.

Karine Seneca’s injury prompted the company to bring in guest artist Patricia Barker, a principal from Pacific Northwest Ballet who was the dream Clara in the 1986 Carroll Ballard film Nutcracker: The Motion Picture and Titania in the 1999 PNB film of George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as one of its Lilac Fairies. Barker has glorious port de bras and timing, and you can read her mime from the back of the Wang, but her dancing was subdued (only a couple of Italian fouettés), and she was a slightly brittle presence. Saturday afternoon, a worried-looking Atkins seemed to struggle even with steps that are well within her range, and she didn’t attempt the fouettés. Once past the Prologue (where the Lilac Fairy does all her serious dancing), she radiated her usual warmth, both sexual and maternal. Jennifer Glaze’s Carabosse is an unwanted intruder from the Real World whose gift of a jeweled distaff confounds the King and Queen (they appear never to have handled anything having to do with work); she’s as necessary to Aurora’s future as is the Lilac Fairy, and in Glaze’s performance hardly less sympathetic. On Friday, Viktor Plotnikov was more adversarial; I missed the feeling of thwarted sisterhood that only a woman can provide.

Act I is anchored by the Garland Dance and the Rose Adagio. In the 1994 Royal Beauty that’s preserved on video, the Garland Dance looks effete and underpopulated, but the 12 ladies fill the Wang stage with no difficulty, their bustling beatitude and concentric circles compensating for the absence of cute children. It’s less a village celebration and more an anticipation of Aurora’s imminent womanhood. Thursday, Lorna Feijóo brought power and panache to Aurora, kicking out developpés à la seconde as if she were a Rockette and pausing on unsupported pointe as if deciding whether to take the next suitor’s hand. Her footwork — the ronds de jambes in her variation, for example — has sharp definition but she’s never choppy, and like Trinidad Sevillano, who danced Aurora for Boston Ballet in 1993, she makes not being tall and thin irrelevant. On Friday, Larissa Ponomarenko, reprising her Aurora from the past three Boston Ballet productions, was more innocent and poetic, teasing her suitors but not twisting them around her finger the way Feijóo does, letting herself sink into the music, varying the speed of her manège, focusing more on flow than on point. Saturday afternoon, in her first-ever Aurora, soloist Romi Beppu fluttered and flickered and waited exquisitely on Tchaikovsky’s subversive, off-balance beats, a butterfly one moment, a firefly the next. If her equilibres weren’t the equal of Feijóo’s (credit her suitor quartet of Michael Johnson, Sabi Varga, Mindaugas Bauzys, and Luke Luzicka for helping out), that was quickly lost in the delicacy of her developpés.

Act II of The Sleeping Beauty finally introduces the Prince, as part of a hunting party that includes a Countess who’d like to be a Princess. Melanie Atkins was all solicitude, her Countess, like her Lilac Fairy, equal parts aspiring wife and mother. Sacha Wakelin seemed to aspire more to social status, a less appealing interpretation but not a less legitimate one. Once the hunting party exits, the Prince, like Siegfried in Swan Lake, is left to dance out his unfulfilled yearnings to still more "unbalanced" music that found last weekend’s trio — Nelson Madrigal, Roman Rykine, and Reyneris Reyes — all struggling for perfection. Madrigal was the most boyish of the lot, Rykine the most aristocratic, Reyes the most gallant. The Vision Scene that follows is both the Prince’s vision of Aurora, as presented by the Lilac Fairy, and Aurora’s dream of the Prince during her hundred years’ sleep, so they’re aware of each other and yet not. Beppu and Reyes, helped no little by a touchingly protective Atkins, found the best balance here. The rest of the act is a tableau: the Lilac Fairy takes the Prince in her boat to the castle, dispatches Carabosse with a glance, and directs him to Aurora. It looked much the same with all three casts; Beppu at least seemed curious about her instant husband.

Act III offers a series of fairy-tale-character divertissements and a pas de deux for Aurora and the Prince sandwiched between a polonaise and a mazurka. Petipa and Tchaikovsky also created a Jewel Fairy (Gold, Silver, Sapphire, Diamond) pas de quatre; this production has instead a pas de trois for a man and two women whose anonymity in the company of Puss’n Boots and Red Riding Hood seems misguided. Mindaugas Bauzys was enigmatic but elegant with a gratifying Rie Ichikawa and a buoyant Kathleen Breen Combes who kicked hard in the 5/4 Sapphire variation (Petipa and Tchaikovsky thinking of a five-faceted gem). Pavel Gurevich looked less focused partnering a diligent Sacha Wakelin and a Melanie Atkins who didn’t crackle like Combes but did catch the 5/4 flow. Jared Redick was poised and attentive with a credible Heather Myers and Tempe Ostergren.

The character divertissements include a brief pas de deux for Princess Florine and the Bluebird. As Florine on opening night, Beppu glittered, but Reyes as her Bluebird looked top-heavy in his costume and seemed to have no elevation — it was as if she were teaching him to fly instead of the other way round. Reyes has shown what he can do as the Prince; this was just a case of miscasting. Mindaugas Bauzys was better but still didn’t look like winged victory, and Adriana Suárez didn’t have the precision to go with her poetry. It was corps members Misa Kuranaga and Benjamin Griffiths who at the Saturday matinee showed how this should go, the slighter, lighter Griffiths looking just right in the costume, jackknifing through the temps de poisson positions in his brisés volés diagonals, and even finding some humor in the role, Kuranaga less extroverted and exuberant than Beppu, a true fledgling. In their concluding temps de flèche diagonal they were a real couple, not just two dancers doing the same steps.

Of the three Puss’n Boots–White Cat pairs I saw, Matteo Klemmayer and Kelley Potter were marginally the cattiest. Red Riding Hood is a smaller part, only 90 seconds of skittering about, but with her silent-movie-star affect and over-articulated movements, Alexandra Kochis (with a very capable Patrick Thornberry as her Wolf) made it a highlight of the weekend.

The Sleeping Beauty is the most classic, and often the most demanding, of the classic ballets. The cleaner lines of the Royal Ballet production demand cleaner dancing; Boston Ballet’s corps last weekend was excellent, and in a performance full of technical felicities on Thursday Feijóo’s minuscule slip isn’t worth mentioning, but there was more than the occasional bobble in the other major roles. It’s not that the company’s previous productions have been sharper, but the likes of Trinidad Sevillano, Patrick Armand, Paul Thrussell, Natasha Akhmarova, Jennifer Gelfand, Pollyana Ribeiro, Rob Wallace, and Kyra Strasberg brought to their roles personality as well as technique. That’s the kind of balance no Sleeping Beauty can do without.