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TORONTO - Its sets and costumes may not always pass the rigourous tests of time, but when it comes to aging gracefully, it is still difficult to imagine a more shining example of how it should be done than the National Ballet's timeless production of The Sleeping Beauty.
Created for the company by international ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev back in 1972, it has become, in the ensuing years, the beloved stepchild of artistic director Karen Kain, who maintains it as a corner-stone of the company's reputation, not by ensuring that it remains evergreen, but rather ever golden.
And certainly that gold was burnished to a rich sheen when Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund once again inhabited designer Nicholas Georgiadis' baroquely Byzantine world and brought this most timeless love story to graceful life once again for the enchantment of a Toronto audience at the Four Seasons Centre Friday.
The story, of course, opens in a prologue detailing the birth of Aurora, and in celebrating that birth, her parents -- a regal Rex Harrington teamed with Sophie Letendre -- inadvertently offend the wicked fairy Carabosse, played by the seemingly ageless Victoria Bertram, who places a curse on the young princess.
That curse comes into play only when Aurora has matured into a lovely and graceful young woman, meaning that Heather Ogden is close to perfectly cast when she steps into the role in Act I.
It is then that, as she reviews an array of potential suitors prescreened by her loving father, that Aurora, with a little help from Carabosse, pricks her finger and falls into a deep slumber that will last for 100 years. Only then -- and with a bit of an assist from the good-hearted Lilac Fairy (Lise-Marie Jourdain) -- is she awakened by a kiss from Prince Florimund, danced by Guillaume Cote, and the two are launched into happy ever-afterdom with a lavish wedding party.
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At the centre of the story, Cote and Ogden are almost perfectly cast, their technically flawless partnership filled with virtuosity and marred only slightly by the fact that she doesn't seem to share his almost cosmic sense of connection to his partner.
And with the romance at the heart of the story in such fine hands, it is left to the remainder of the company to bring the rest of Nureyev's breathtaking choreography to life -- a task that under Kain's tutelage is accomplished with impressive skill and dispatch.
Amongst a strong company, look for particularly impressive showings from fairies Tina Pereira, Tanya Howard and Bridgett Zehr; Diamond Man Piotr Stanczyk and his cluster of jewels; Pussycats Klara Houdet and Robert Staphan; and, of course, a particularly crowd-pleasing Bluebird Keiichi Harano and his Princess Florine, danced by Sonia Rodriguez.
It all plays out -- almost three hours of it -- riding the crests of wave after wave of Tchaikovsky's timeless score served up by the NBOC Orchestra, under the skilled baton of conductor David Briskin.
All of whch is not to say that it is a flawless evening of entertainment, for although Kain has over time subtly subdued some of the more flamboyant rococo elements of Nureyev's collaboration with designer Georiadis, it still boasts a look that borders on dated and fussy, filled with autumnal hues and sporting enough feathers to reupholster an entire winged migration.
But when the music and the dance come together the way they did Friday, it's easy to overlook such excess in the window dressing and allow the magic at the heart of the story to be awakened with a kiss.