Sleeping Beauty, with Choe and Hirano, and Lamb and McRae, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, 13 March 2014
Posted on 14 March 2014What a huge pleasure to see Yuhui Choe and Ryoichi Hirano in the main roles at the matinee. Her dancing, so full of joy, was absolutely on the music, and a better Rose Adagio one could hardly hope for. With Hirano’s noble and dashing Prince their partnership gave a beautiful expression of the story, helped by a superb portrayal of the King and Queen by Gary Avis and Elizabeth McGorian. Avis’s mime in Act I is so eloquent when he tells his daughter she is now beautiful, ready to choose a prince and surely spoiled for choice with the four suitors invited to her coming-out party.

McRae and Court Ladies in Act II, all images ROH/ Johan Persson
In the evening performance Sarah Lamb showed a gentle grace and elegance, if somewhat aloof from the suitors in the Act I party scene, and the partnership with Steven McRae in Acts II and III was superb. His Act II solo was beautifully expressive, and the two of them gave a bravura performance in Act III. McRae’s jumps and quick-silver turns expressed huge joie de vivre, and after the trumpets have announced the Prince’s solo, he danced like a man possessed.

McRae and Lamb
Kenta Kura and Hikaru Kobayashi were excellent Bluebirds in both performances, she dancing with her fine precision, he with wonderfully fluid movements. And in the pas-de-trois for Florestan and his sisters, both Tristan Dyer (matinee) and James Hay (evening) were a joy to watch, with Akane Takada particularly musical in the afternoon performance.
Among other supporting roles in the evening, Kristen McNally made an assertively sinister Carabosse, Laura McCulloch a fine Lilac Fairy, and in the Act I Fairy Variations, Claudia Dean (matinee) was particularly good in the second one, and Olivia Cowley (evening) very graceful in the first.
Valery Ovsyanikov conducted a fully responsive orchestra, with a lovely cello solo in Act II and glorious sounds from the brass in Act III.
Performances with various casts continue until April 9 — for details click here.