Early days: The Sleeping Beauty at the ROH
The Sleeping Beauty
The Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
16 February 2017 (matinee)
Amphitheatre B36, £16
http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/the-sleeping-beauty-by-marius-petipa
I was so excited about the prospect of Francesca Hayward that I accidentally booked tickets for her weekday matinee debut. Oops! Following some negotiation with the bosses and a few late evenings at the office I got to see the show anyway. Was it worth all the fuss? Of course, but maybe not quite as much as I'd been hoping.
Everyone knows Aurora is a stupidly difficult role. But as a non-dancer I think it's difficult to know what that means – isn't pretty much everything a dancer does stupidly difficult? With all the outrageously hard work hidden behind a facade of carefree 'no actually all this stuff is really easy just look'. So in a way it's valuable to see a dancer of Hayward's exceptional style, grace and ease of movement struggle with this beast of a part.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the facade and usually even the slightest hint that it might be dropping sets me on edge (I twitched all the way through an early performance of The Two Pigeons when the corps didn't have it quite under their skin, much to David's annoyance as my seat neighbour and principal twitcher-at). This matinee performance of The Sleeping Beauty had had its fair share of jitters even before Aurora appeared – aside from a few notable exceptions the fairies didn't seem very happy, with Claire Calvert and Beatriz Stix-Brunell in particular not giving performances worthy of their usual wonderfulness.
Part of Hayward's charm is the way every part of her seems to express sheer love of dance. This quality in her Aurora grew as the performance went on but wasn't there for her Act I marathon – reasonably enough, as of all the things to daunt a young dancer I imagine the Rose Adage is the one to do it. I'm sure Hayward will master it before long, but in this debut performance there were shakes and wobbles. Still, it didn't seem to dint the appreciation of the audience.
The performance settled from Act II onwards. Alexander Campbell as the Prince too seemed to suffer from a touch of first-show nerves but he very soon entered his stride and then some, with his customary strength and blistering accuracy. He's obviously a sound partner for Hayward and it will be interesting to see them together in more dramatic repertory. The corps acquitted themselves in the Vision Scene, while Ashley Dean made a lovely White Cat in her role debut, her deep pliés sending giggles of delight around the young audience.
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