“Sleeping Beauty”
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, New York
February 13, 2019
by Michael Popkin
copyright © 2019 by Michael Popkin
Nearly 15 months after Peter Martins’ resignation from New York City Ballet, where an interim artistic team continues to run things during the search for his successor, his elaborate production of “The Sleeping Beauty” went back on stage Wednesday night for the first of fourteen performances. Yet with a full house and Martins himself in the audience, the opening night was anything but a success. As a spectacle, the staging looked dated. Its contraction of the story from four acts to two with a single intermission, by means of making the action continuous and using scenic projections to cover the changes of era, combined with certain Walt Disneyesque elements in the décor and costuming to make the ballet feel closer to a Broadway musical like “Cats” or “The Lion King” than the ravishing Margot Fonteyn-Royal Ballet experiences of yesteryear.
Photo © Paul Kolnik of New York City Ballet in the Garland Dance from “The Sleeping Beauty”