Cleveland Ballet – Sleeping Beauty
Playhouse Square – Connor Palace Theatre
Cleveland, Ohio
April 27, 2024

By Steve Sucato

Cleveland Ballet never looked better in its first production under new Artistic Director Timour Bourtasenkov. Performing former Carolina Ballet Artistic Director Robert Weiss’ 2008 full-length Sleeping Beauty ballet on Saturday, April 27, at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace Theatre, the company, which was already quite good, showed it had gotten even better under Bourtasenkov. A newfound unified stylistic look and corps de ballet togetherness were bolstered by dancing that was full-out and full of passion.   

With a fully realized (if not a bit dated) set, lovely costumes from Weiss’ original Carolina Ballet production, and additional costumes from Canton Ballet, Sleeping Beauty had a proper theatrical look and feel to it to accompany Weiss’ illustrative and challenging choreography after Marius Petipa’s 1890 original.

Danced to Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s famous score for the ballet, the 2-act production, based on the classic fairytale of good versus evil by Charles Perrault, adapted by The Brothers Grimm, was staged by Bourtasenkov, a former principal dancer with Carolina Ballet.

Act one of the ballet opened on a storybook land where the christening celebration of newborn Princess Aurora took place. The King and Queen of the land invited nobility and fairies from distant lands to bless their child through dance. Expertly crafted and performed group dances by court couples and by the fairies and their cavaliers were an early indication of Weiss’ top-level choreography for the ballet.

A succession of lively solos by the five visiting fairies followed. Sydney Henson, as the Fairy of the Crystal Fountain, costumed in a blue tutu, led them off. Henson’s solo showcased her superior flexibility and arm and leg extension, while Chelsea Endris, costumed in green as the Fairy of the Woodland Glades, moved through a moderately paced dance variation, hopping on one leg and lighting up the stage with her radiant smile. Rounding out the solos were the fast footwork of Kaela Ku as the Fairy of the Song Birds, Uma Deming performing with exhilarating authority and pace as the Fairy of the Golden Vine, and Lilac Fairy Anna Cole who danced with control and elegance. 

In keeping with Sleeping Beauty’s familiar storyline, the evil fairy Carabosse, who was left off the christening guest list, arrived out for revenge at being slighted accompanied by sinister sidekick Johan Mancebo as the Raven to curse Aurora, foretelling that on her sixteenth birthday, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die. Nashializ Gomez Orengo, as the vindictive Carabosse, sporting an intimidating grin and casting withering stares at those gathered, delighted in her character’s wickedness, as did the audience with her expressive portrayal of Carabosse throughout the ballet.

Jumping ahead in the story to Aurora’s sixteenth birthday celebration, we see a confident and radiant princess portrayed by Svetlana Svinko, a native of Krasnoyarsk, Russia.   

Although Cleveland Ballet is a non-ranked company, with her top-flight classical technique, commanding stage presence, and star quality, Svinko is assuredly one of the company’s prima ballerinas. That was abundantly apparent in Sleeping Beauty’s famously difficult Rose Adagio. The adagio, a series of balances on one leg done twice while collecting a rose from each of four cavaliers/suitors, is one of classical ballet’s skillful rites of passage for a ballerina. Svinko performed it adroitly. Perhaps the only knock on her performance was seemingly an emotional disconnect with her character early on that had her brilliant dancing appearing a bit methodical.

Act one concluded with Aurora pricking her finger and the Lilac Fairy saving her life by altering Carabosse’s spell so that Aurora would not die but instead fall into an endless slumber that could only be broken by true love’s kiss.

Sleeping Beauty’s second act opened with a scene unique to the Weiss production. Prince Desire (Narek Martirosyan), contemplating a desire to find love and marry, looked on as his six hunter pals engaged in a skills contest, each attempting to one-up the others in challenging leaps, jumps, and turns with some faring better than others in their execution. The veteran Martirosyan then showed the others how it is done in a solidly performed bravura solo. Soon after, the prince encountered the Lilac Fairy, who told him about the beautiful Princess Aurora during an elaborate vision scene. The scene was Cleveland Ballet’s female corps de ballet dancers’ time to shine. Costumed as forest nymphs in green tutus, the women engaged in a marvelously choreographed group dance.

Next, looking to foil the Lilac Fairly and Prince Desire’s plans to awaken Aurora, in the ballet’s most dramatic scene, Carabosse turned herself into a 20-foot-tall dragon (puppet) to do battle with the prince who ultimately prevailed, awoke Aurora, and the two fell instantly in love.

The ballet’s final section was the wedding celebration of Aurora and Prince Desire. During it, the five fairies and their cavaliers danced another round of demi-solos, followed by a sequence of storybook characters dancing to entertain those gathered. They included dancers Erinn Crittenden and Diego Castillo as Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf acting out imagery from that well-known fairy tale; Katharine Cowan and Vadim Slatvitskii playfully pawing at each other as the White Cat and Puss-in-Boots, and Breanna Faith Justus and Emmanuel Martirosyan wowing in the beautifully demanding Blue Bird Pas de Deux with its stamina challenging sequences of bravura jumps, leg beats, and rapid-fire footwork.

The brilliant production concluded thrillingly with Svinko and Martirosyan as the royal newlyweds in an elegant grand pas de deux, showing off their charisma and polished skills as dancers and performers that brought the audience to its feet.

With 2023’s unfortunate organizational upheaval now behind it, this significantly improved Cleveland Ballet is a must-see for ballet fans here and beyond.