When Petipa choreographed Sleeping Beauty in 1890, he didn't plan on his bad fairy Carabosse getting wolf whis tles as she entered the stage, nor, as diva dominatrix, attempting to seduce the good Prince Florimund with her trashy wiles. But Petipa wouldn't recognise much in ENB's current production of his ballet - which is just as director Derek Deane planned. This, after all, is ballet for the people, not for purists: scaled up for the vast circular stage of the Albert Hall and with spectacle, not choreography, driving the evening.
Since this is the third classic that Deane has staged this way, it's wearisome to rehearse the familiar arguments - accessibility and fun traded against the distancing effect of the huge venue, and the violation of classical dance principles imposed by the in-the-round format. But for Beauty, the most delicately constructed of all the classics, the trade-off proves the least convincing. Take Carabosse, a role tarted up by Deane for the dubious talents of ex-Kirov babe Anastasia Volochkova. In tra ditional stagings this mad, bad fairy is already a riot: she sweeps the stage with her grotesque cohorts, and her power is articulated in the witty mime with which she viciously satirises other, prissier fairies. Deane, who has excised most of Petipa's original text, has tried to update this mime, but his resort to rampant kicking and preening looks neither sexy nor dangerous, rather as if Carabosse is having an alcoholic tantrum.
Much of the new choreogra phy is almost as weak: the Cat and Blue Bird pas de deux have been re-written to ugly and unmusical effect and although the Fairy variations in the Prologue have some very pretty steps, why bother when the originals served so well? More Petipa survives in the choreography for the lead couple, and while it's irritating to have the ballerina and her Prince constantly revolving to face all their audience (leaving us staring at Aurora's knickers during parts of the Rose Ada gio) there are moments where we can still admire the assured performance of the very young, very tiny Erina Takahashi. She has tremendous power, and if she looks somewhat bland in this Beauty, she obviously has huge potential.
The production's other consolation is a clever trick of the staging. Though much of the design is an unperiod assortment of acid-toned costumes in cheap-looking fabrics, the back wall of the Albert Hall has been disguised as the facade of a huge castle. The orchestra, seated high on a platform, look as if they are playing Tchaikovsky on the balcony of a fairy chateau.
Until June 20. Box office: 020-7589 8212.
