Ritual, not enchantment

Presented once more at La Scala, this staging of the world-famous ballet builds a realm governed by order and protocol, while its capacity to move or unsettle the spectator remains limited.

by Alessandro Bizzotto

Far from a mere fairy tale, Rudolf Nureyev’s The Sleeping Beauty recasts the royal court as a finely tuned social organism. As I have noted in previous reviews, opulent spectacle here coexists with a psychological framework, though essentially superficial. This is a monumental vision of ballet in which every gesture is measured, and each tableau communicates hierarchy and authority. Nowhere is this more evident than in the prologue, where King Florestan asserts himself as a clearly absolute monarch, and the familiar narrative unfolds as a study in protocol. Nureyev’s choreography mirrors this precision: classical lines and symmetrical formations sit alongside moments of realism, characters both stylised and human, their ambitions and vulnerabilities legible in posture and port de bras, extending even to the master of ceremonies, who risks, quite literally, dramatic annihilation somewhere between prologue and Act One.

After roughly six years, this production returns to La Scala, Milan, in the staging designed by Oscar-winner Franca Squarciapino. Her work envelops the stage in facades suspended between Rococo and Neoclassical styles, featuring expansive windows. Unlike the Paris Opera’s version of Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty, where Squarciapino contributed costumes only while the sets remained Ezio Frigerio’s, the Milanese revival adopts a different tonal register. The grandeur of the Parisian production – never merely decorative, airy and suffused with burnished golds and shimmering pastels – here tips into something far more garish and storybook-like. Consider, for instance, Aurora’s tutus in Acts One and Two which, rendered entirely in orange or lilac, curiously evoke, one might say, a plasticised, doll-like incarnation of the princess.