Sleeping Beauty ballet at Scarborough Spa

Every child’s favourite fairytale, Sleeping Beauty is the classic story of love and innocence, mystery and magic set to Tchaikovsky’s sublime score.

Stunning choreography, sumptuous costumes and wonderful sets form the fantasy world in which the Lilac Fairy struggles against the evil Carabosse.

Outline based on the fairy-tale by Charles Perrault, the Sleeping Beauty tells of the Princess Aurora, cursed at her christening by the evil Carabosse to prick her finger one day on a spindle and die.

Thanks to the timely intervention of the Lilac Fairy, she doesn’t die, but sleeps for a hundred years.

Woken by a prince, who has battled through the Enchanted Forest to reach her, they marry at a ceremony attended by nursery rhyme characters like Puss in Boots and all the other forest creatures.

Loving ballet and dance, Tchaikovsky found fresh inspiration in setting music to a specific programme. When composing the Sleeping Beauty he had the stimulus of working to the detailed scenario and notes prepared for him by the choreographer Marius Petipa.

There are no scores more successful in supporting the full range of ballet than those by Tchaikovsky.

Highlights include the Famous Rose Adagio when Princess Aurora is introduced to four princes.

Tickets on sale now from 01723 821888.