Panto season is over and Moscow City Ballet have taken over the Sheffield Lyceum for a week and this year, they present their version of The Sleeping Beauty. It has some nice music played by a brilliant orchestra, written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Elisaveta Dvorkina’s costumes are beautiful although very traditional for ballet. The set design by Natalia Povago and Evgeny Gurenko is primarily made up of backdrops and this unfortunately means there isn’t much spectacle to the production.
Lilia Orekhova plays the role of Princess Aurora. Her dancing is beautiful to watch but she doesn’t characterise her role very much. Daniil Orlov plays the Prince and he is quite entertaining with some good characterisation. They dance well together but don’t show a huge amount of chemistry in their performances.
Polina Dyachkova is stunning as the Lilac Fairy. She is a joy to watch dance in this show and brings a real warmth to the stage through her performance. Kirill Kasatkin is the real standout in the show for me as Carabosse. He is very engaging in his performance, demonstrating brilliant comic timing and brings a great energy to the show.
There is a huge ensemble and supporting cast for this production and they all give wonderful performances throughout. I couldn’t pick one out from another.
This production is a very traditional ballet and unfortunately, it didn’t work for me and it didn’t engage me very much. There is minimal theatricality in this production. Most of the audience did seem to be enjoying it though so please don’t let me opinion sway you too much. I could appreciate the great deal of skill that the dancers had however.
Moscow City Ballet are touring the UK with The Sleeping Beauty, alongside Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker until 2nd March 2019. https://moscowcityballet.com/
Reviewer: Jacob Bush
Reviewed: 8th January 2019
North West End Rating: ★★★
