The Sleeping Beauty: Suite, Op.66a

When King Florestan christened his daughter Aurora and selected her godmothers from among the fairies he, most unfortunately, failed to invite the wicked fairy Carabosse. Her revenge is to put a curse on Aurora who, she decrees, will prick herself on a sharp object, fall asleep and never wake up again. The Lilac Fairy takes pity on the Princess and, though she cannot reverse the curse entirely, moderates it so that when Aurora pricks herself and falls asleep she will be given the chance to be awakened by a handsome prince. At Aurora’s twentieth birthday party Carabosse sees to it that she does in fact prick herself on a spindle. The Princess duly falls asleep and the whole court with her. A hundred years later the Lilac Fairy leads Prince Désiré to the sleeping beauty and he awakens her with a kiss.

Charles Perrault’s fairy story The Sleeping Beauty delighted Tchaikovsky “beyond all description,” he said, and inspired what he rightly considered to be one of his greatest scores (although, on its first performance in St Petersburg in 1890, the Tsar could find nothing more enthusiastic to say about it than “Very nice!”). Much though Tchaikovsky liked the music he did not, as he was to do with The Nutcracker, make a concert suite out of it. The Suite to be performed on this occasion, as on most others, was arranged by the composer’s younger colleague Alexander Ziloti.

The Suite begins like the ballet with dramatic and clearly malevolent music associated with the evil fairy Carabosse. A change of mood, following a fierce climax and a short silence, signals the entry of the Lilac Fairy, whose benevolent nature is suggested by a lovely melody on cor anglais accompanied by harp. This particular extract is taken from the end of the first act, after Aurora has fallen asleep: by means of a powerful spell (on woodwind and brass) the Lilac Fairy puts the rest of the court to sleep and turns the royal garden into an impenetrable forest.

The “Rose” Adagio comes from earlier in the first act where Aurora’s princely suitors at her twentieth birthday party are astonished by her beauty as she presents them with roses. Introduced by a harp cadenza and based on one of the most beautiful and most expressive of all Tchaikovsky’s melodies, it is developed almost to the extent of a symphonic movement. Puss in Boots and the White Cat (visitors from another Perrault fairy tale) are comic and very distinctly feline guests at Princess Aurora’s wedding to Prince Désiré near the end of the ballet. Panorama, another lyrically expansive episode, comes from the second act where the Lilac Fairy leads Désiré to King Florestan’s castle. As for the Waltz performed as part of Aurora’s birthday celebrations in the first act, while it is not as varied as the great Waltz in Swan Lake, it is no less tuneful and no less seductive.