Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty

New Adventures' 25th Anniversary year culminates with the World Premiere of Matthew Bourne’s latest re-imagining of an iconic and beloved ballet classic. Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty sees the choreographer return to the music of Tchaikovsky to complete the trio of the composer’s ballet masterworks that started in 1992 with Nutcracker! and continued most famously in 1995 with the international hit Swan Lake.

Perrault’s timeless fairy tale, about a young girl cursed to sleep for one hundred years, was turned into a legendary ballet by choreographer, Marius Petipa, in 1890. Bourne takes this 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. As Aurora grows into a young woman, 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!

Matthew Bourne’s haunting new scenario is a gothic tale for all ages; the traditional tale of good vs evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, across the decades, that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.

Sleeping Beauty’s visit to Edinburgh has been made possible through Stage One investment from Creative Scotland.

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