The Royal Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty returns – also in cinemas

This season, The Royal Ballet's production of The Sleeping Beauty returns to the Royal Opera House, from Monday 16 January until Tuesday 6 June 2023.

The ballet was first presented at Covent Garden in 1946 after the post-war re-opening of the Royal Opera House with Margot Fonteyn as Princess Aurora, Robert Helpmann as Prince Florimund and Beryl Grey as the Lilac Fairy.

Marius Petipa's three-act ballet was fully restored to the company's repertory by Monica Mason and Christopher Newton in 2006, using the original designs by Oliver Messel, now with additional choreography by Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell, and Christopher Wheeldon.

The production will be broadcast live to cinemas on Wednesday 24 May 2023 at 7:15pm, with Yasmine Naghdi as Aurora and Matthew Ball as Florimund. Encore performances will follow.

The Sleeping Beauty – photo album

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.