"Great Performances" Presents Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty April 25 | Playbill

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News "Great Performances" Presents Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty April 25 Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, the gothic re-imaging of the classic fairy tale, will air on PBS April 25 at 9 PM.

Featured as part of the "Great Performances" series, the ballet, which is set to music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, tells the story of a young girl cursed to sleep for 100 years. Tchaikovsky and choreographer, Marius Petipa, adapted it into a ballet in 1890. Bourne's adaptation presents the story as a gothic fairy tale, featuring supernatural elements.

"Bourne takes [1890] as his starting point, setting the christening of Aurora, the story's heroine, in the year of the ballet's first performance; the height of the fin-de-siecle period when fairies, vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination," press notes state. "As Aurora grows into a young woman (Hannah Vassallo), we move forwards in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical golden age of long summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes. Years later, awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day; a world more mysterious and wonderful than any Fairy story."

The cast includes Hannah Vassallo as Princess Aurora, Dominic North as Leo, Christopher Marney as Count Lilac, Adam Maskell as Carabosse/Caradoc, Edwin Ray as King Benedict, Kerry Biggin as Queen Eleanor and Daisy May Kemp as Miss Maddox. Sophia Hurdley, Mari Kamata, Katy Lowenhoff, Liam Mower and Joe Walkling are the fairies.

The cast also includes Danny Collins, Pia Driver, Phil Jack Gardner, Tom Jackson Greaves, Nicole Kabera, Kate Lyons, Leon Moran, Luke Murphy, Ashley Shaw, Danny Reubens and Chris Trenfield.

Bourne received Tony Awards for direction and choreography for his production of Swan Lake. His stage credits also include choreography and direction of Mary Poppins.  Visit Great Performances Online at pbs.org/gperf for additional information.

 
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