“The Sleeping Beauty” performance is not only a fairy-tale from the book or the one living in each of us. It is an amazing story, where space and time appear before our very eyes. Where the good and the bad are clear and well-defined, rather than so blurred and ambiguous as in actual life. Where harmony always triumphs. Furthermore, as the authors of the performance note, they wanted to create a visual triumph of the literary genre, which was first invented for adults, but some time later it passed into the children’s world because of erroneous and exaggerated conviction that the appetite for narration is the same as art and imagination of a narrator. Are imagination, metaphor and symbolism inherent in the children’s world only? 

It should be remembered that Perrault wrote for the court of the Sun King, having seen the grandeur and the oddity of the court life of Paris and Versailles, having witnessed the events, which shocked France. He encrypted them in his stories. 

The theatrical structure of the fairy-tale is based on literary allusions. On the one part there are “airy realms”, which contain nothing real or realistic, on the other part there is certain atmosphere and special symbolism. 

Two major spaces of the fairytale performance are associated with nature: the terrace, which imitates the rainbow form and dyes, the forest, which is like a temple of long sleep and wakening love. In these spaces the characters act, who balance between the fairy-tale by Perrault (brilliantly translated by Carlo Collodi) and libretto of the ballet by Tchaikovsky of the same name. 

The palace settled down into a sleep is nothing but a theater in the theater, a fantastic visual gift, which has never been given by any book of fairy-tales to a reader before now, who always desires such spells as the spells of the magic forest, which safeguard the piece of a person asleep. 

A mysterious prophesy, which locked space and stopped time. Struggle of Magic Harmony with Evil and its magic spells. Arrival of the Beloved Prince. Knightly sense of adventure. Sudden love for the beautiful bewitched Princess. A marvelous love-token – a kiss, which brings to life the Beauty and the palace inhabitants... A magic book of fairy-tales presents us familiar symbols of fear, despair and fantastic characters in an endless stream of changing generations. 

April 5,6, “Magnesite” Cultural Center.

Production: Grupporiani Association and “Carlo Colla and Sons” Puppet Theater (Milan, Italy)

Music: P.I. Tchaikovsky

Performance: Eugenio Monti Colla

Stage director: Laura Pasetti