The California Ballet began with the mission to fill the void of a professional ballet company operating in San Diego. For almost forty five years, it has provided quality entertainment to its community. The Sleeping Beauty has been one of its most famous works, which has been both commercially successful and critically acclaimed as well.
California Ballet:
A brainchild of former ballet dancer Maxine Mahon, the California Ballet was formed in 1968. Mahon became the company’s artistic director and started the company by employing dancers on a project to project basis. In 1971, the company staged its first major production, The Nutcracker, at the Russ Auditorium. The ballet started holding its productions at the San Diego Civic Center the following year, starting a partnership that remains till today.
Following their move to the Civic Center, the company started expanding and incorporated new ballets to its repertoire. Giselle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Coppelia were some of the new additions to their growing repertoire.
As the company continued to grow, the following decade became instrumental to its success. New artists and new ballets were added, and the spending budget increased as the ballet started garnering a following. Some of the new works included ballets like California Heritage Project, The Legend of Josefa and Romeo & Juliet. Around this time, world renowned ballerina Denise Dabrowski came to the forefront as a member of the Ballet California.
In 1989, the company participated in a cultural exchange tour, and went to Russia. As a result, the company started becoming recognized internationally. It continued to build on these strong foundations and over the last forty five years, has earned a reputation for being one of the best dance companies in the country. International stars, like Ukraine’s Vadim Solomakha, have danced in the company’s productions, and it has gone on numerous international tours. Every year new works debut at the company’s annual Choreography Concert, as the company tries to preserve this classic art form for the generations yet to come.
The Sleeping Beauty:
The Sleeping Beauty is ballet in a prologue and three acts, composed by the Russian maestro, Pytor Ilych Tchaikovsky. Based on Charles Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant, the original production was choreographed by Marius Petipa, and performed for the first time in 1890.
California Ballet’s rendition of The Sleeping Beauty also features Petipa’s choreography, but has additions by their artistic director Maxine Mahon. The company’s production is crisp and according to a critic, “in this production both the action and the dancing marched forward with competence”.
The story of The Sleeping Beauty is similar to the one portrayed by Disney in its famous film, and revolves around the curse put on Princess Aurora by the evil witch Carabosse, for not being invited at the occasion of her birth. Her curse entails that on her sixteenth birthday the beautiful princess will prick her thumb on a spindle and die. Unable to undo the curse, the powerful and good lilac fairy does change it somewhat, and rather than dying, Aurora will instead fall asleep for a hundred years and be woken by true love’s kiss.
A beautiful story, The Sleeping Beauty has captured the imaginations of audiences worldwide, becoming one of the most adapted fairytales of all time.