Abstract
Six fairies were invited to Princess Aurora’s christening, and together, they will in turn gift her all of the good traits she might need. But the evil fairy Carabosse was not invited, and she gets her revenge with a curse: Aurora will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. The good fairy Fliederfee cannot undo the evil fairy’s curse, but she can weaken it. And when a grown-up Aurora does prick her finger, she and all of the castle’s inhabitants fall into a hundred-year sleep, from which only a prince can awaken her.
Dornröschen premiered in St. Petersburg in 1890, with Piotr Tchaikovsky’s unforgettable music serving as the basis for Marius Petipa’s choreography. For this version for the Ballett Zürich, Christian Spuck reimagines this classic work with his own signature artistic style. He takes another look at the age-old story of Sleeping Beauty, and, in the process, positions the fairy Carabosse in the center. She is a wounded, deeply feeling, and passionate figure, capable of rejecting revenge on her path of personal growth. Princess Aurora, in turn, matures into a confident young woman.
Christian Spuck takes a look at the difficult process of growing up from a perspective full of humor: conflicts with parents, the path of maturing into an adult, and love and sexuality. Whenever possible, Spuck releases the characters from their traditional and clichéd roles. He uses Petipa’s interpretation as a model, occasionally quoting from it, questioning and countering it, and infuses his own interpretation with irony and moments of friction. Robertas Šervenikas will conduct the Philharmonia Zurich.