An encyclopedia of classical dance, a breakthrough in ballet music, a delightful extravaganza: all this is about the ballet "Sleeping Beauty", the world's masterpiece of ballet art.
The idea to create a ballet based on the famous fairy tale by Charles Perrault about eternal sleep and the kiss of a handsome prince came to the head of the director of the Imperial Theatres, Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky. He wrote the libretto himself and invented the first costumes, but, of course, the main authors of the masterpiece were Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who wrote an amazing music, and Marius Petipa, who embodied choreographic perfection in this stunning ballet.
“Sleeping Beauty”, in which the opulent atmosphere of french king Louis XIV was recreated, has become the most beautiful and most expensive ballet of Mariinsky Theatre. Tchaikovsky had to write music according to a clear plan of the choreographer, but this did not limit his sensual expression. The music was created between the Fifth Symphony and The Queen of Spades and became a pearl of lightness and light among compositions full of drama.