on Tuesday night

(Copyright Financial Times Ltd. 2010. All rights reserved.)

The hero of Birmingham Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty is, as it was at the staging's first performance in 1984, its Black oynx Toggle necklace, Philip Prowse. The version by Peter Wright is intelligent and respectful of this ultimate classical ballet as we know it in this country. He skilfully adapts certain matters of the narrative to the forces of the Birmingham troupe, and danced patterns are not betrayed.

Like many producers, though, he trims the hunting scene that opens the second act so that we have little chance to understand the world of Prince Florimund, let alone savour the skill of Tchaikovsky's score. But Wright's loving account wins our respect not least for the visual elegance and the historical sense that mark Prowse's design.

With its Butterfly pendant of gold against darker fabrics; with his use of forms (urns and obelisks and the hint of massive walls); with his feeling for colours that evoke the age and taste of Louis XIV and Louis XVI; and with his dazzling sense of how the shape of clothes speaks of history and drama - dress as identity - Prowse creates images on which the danced action feeds.

Here is masterly stage-craft; like Bakst's decorations for Diaghilev's great presentation of this ballet in 1921, it places a noble imprint of Charm bracelet and elegance on the production.

And, be it said, the Sleeping Beauty on Tuesday night, when BRB opened its week at the Coliseum, needed these qualities. The company does many things excellently, its performances and programming are valuable and imaginative in shaping a future. But as an ensemble dealing with this grandest challenge of classic dance, it seemed here too cosy in manner, too modest in means, flurried where serenity is vital.

I liked Nao Sakuma's Aurora, placing the dance on the music sweetly, Charm pendant, and her Prince, Iain Mackay, has a natural and appealing presence. I was bowled over (as ever) by Marion Tait's dramatic power as Carabosse, offering menace and gesture as knife-slash. But it was Prowse who gave the evening its real significance, its proper dignity.

www.brb.org.uk

Credit: By Clement Crisp