Dance : Houston Ballet Delivers a Stirring ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Lavish and lively to excess, Ben Stevenson’s 100th anniversary staging of “The Sleeping Beauty” not only summarizes the performance history of this Petipa/Tchaikovsky classic but suggests controversial options for keeping the ballet fresh in its second century.

Three Houston Ballet casts embodied Stevenson’s bold and essentially redemptive approach in weekend performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. On the whole, the dancing looked scrupulous and fine-tuned, but you’d never confuse this regional ensemble with the Kirov Ballet or even American Ballet Theatre.

However, the Kirov no longer tries to tell the story of “The Sleeping Beauty,” but presents the ballet as merely a string of isolated showpieces held together by empty tradition. And American Ballet Theatre interprets “The Sleeping Beauty” as a brain-dead exercise in style.

In contrast, the Stevenson version believes in the story as drama and as metaphor, working aggressively to heighten the thematic relevance of dances that can seem nothing but displays of academic classicism in other stagings.

Aurora’s solo following the Rose Adagio, for instance, now sustains the focus on her four suitors--with more roses helping reinforce the dramatic context. This is courtship, not just a demonstration of pointe-work. Similarly, the fairies of the Prologue are now defined as nature-spirits, their gestural motifs expanded into emblematic statements.

Even in the glittering Wedding pas de deux, moments of intimacy between Aurora and Florimund help make some of their most celebrated technical feats seem declarations of love and trust.

Unfortunately, like most crusaders, Stevenson commits his own crimes in the name of reform. Beyond the disappointments caused by limitations of company size (the underpopulated Garland Waltz, for instance), his “Sleeping Beauty” suffers from an outrageous emphasis on speed and production glitz.

Conductor Stewart Kershaw delivers a white-knuckler ride that jettisons much of the score’s lyricism and formal eloquence in its pursuit of bright, propulsive velocity. Designer Desmond Heeley wrecks the architectural grandeur of his decors by fussy overdecoration--often with glitter.

In Heeley’s whimsical romp through period fashions, Aurora is christened in 17th-Century Spain, turns 16 in 18th-Century France and wakes up from her enchanted sleep in Russia at the end of the 19th Century. Happily, a tutu is never out of style, though the Lilac Fairy’s fluorescent purple one, and Aurora’s hot-pink, sleeved birthday dress turn major entrances in the ballet into moments of consternation.

The dancing at the performances Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening yielded many happy surprises and one hard truth: The Bluebird is obviously extinct as a species in Houston.

Lilac, however, clearly thrives, especially as cultivated by the dynamic Lauren Anderson in both performances Saturday.

Rachel Beard offered a smaller scale Lilac Fairy Friday on her way to Aurora on Saturday afternoon. Both performances revealed reliable technique but mechanical phrasing and a tendency toward mannerism in her acting.

Janie Parker, the Friday Aurora, danced with professionalism and a rare ability to dramatize virtuosity--to make audiences sense her accomplishment in the ballet’s best known technical challenges.

However, for quality of movement and an imaginative, personal take on the role, no Aurora eclipsed Martha Butler on Saturday night. Butler alone heard and reflected the sense of melancholy in the adagio of the Wedding pas de deux and drew you deeply into her mood, aided by the devoted and generally persuasive Florimund of Mark Arvin.

Sean Kelly proved less reliable both as a soloist and a partner at the afternoon performance, but brought clarity and depth to Florimund’s interview with the Lilac Fairy at the beginning of the Vision Scene (one of the few traditional mime passages still intact in Stevenson’s version).

On Friday, Li Cunxin delivered an intense, technically impeccable performance of the same role, heroic in the interpolated Vision Scene solo and the one in the Wedding duet, tenderly considerate in all his partnering duties.

Although Stevenson’s production is aimed at a wider public, every “Sleeping Beauty” connoisseur can easily find references within it to stagings that proved momentous in the ballet’s history. Start with that Florimund-Lilac Fairy mime passage from the 1890 Maryinsky original, then add the Three Ivans from the 1921 Diaghilev production that so influenced the development of British classicism.

Stir in memories of the Sadler’s Wells “Sleeping Beauty” that introduced Margot Fonteyn to America in 1949--memories shared with the Houston Ballet by Fonteyn herself not long before she died. Finally, season with an innovation from Soviet adaptations: a dancing Carabosse, evil on pointe.

Alas, both Houston Carabosses--Kristine Richmond at the two evening performances and Sandra Organ at the matinee--looked like misplaced Odiles and each found the intricate gymnastics of the Prologue something of a trial. But Richmond, at least, could jete through clouds of fog as if released into gleeful freedom.

As for the other fairies, cavaliers and wedding guests, they confirmed that Houston Ballet is a disciplined, spirited company with enormous potential. In a variety of roles, such paragons as Laurie Volny, Timothy O’Keefe and, especially, the quietly spectacular Tiekka Schofield stayed wholly engaged in “The Sleeping Beauty” as a living experience. Sooner or later, the viewer felt the same way. Now if Stevenson could only hire a decent Bluebird or two. . . .