sarma

Rudolf Nureyev not only staged the version of The Sleeping Beauty which the National Ballet of Canada is showing at the Met; he not only provided "additional choreography after Marius Petipa," he produced the ballet. And God knows what that means anymore. From the way he was calling "lighting!" rather desperately out the side of his Prince Charming mouth during the Naiad's dance on the opening night, one could surmise that he felt personally responsible for the whole show.

His concept of The Sleeping Beauty gropes back toward the 1890 original in some ways (the Lilac Fairy's long heavy costume which precludes much-in this case, any-fancy dancing). In other ways, it picks up credibility from Stanislavski and purls on toward Freud, dropping choreography along the way.

It's the most sumptuous production imaginable. The rooms of King Florestan's castle are all vast, gloomy, golden places; the light seems to be bouncing off acres of bronze. In every scene, pillars and domes soar to apparently limitless heights, grand staircases wind down from infinity. When the Princess pricks her finger and falls into her century-long sleep, one curtain of briars ascends in front of her while another descends behind her-creating a vista of immense thorny patterns. Nicholas Georgiadis (who rates a cartouche around his name in the program) designed the sets and the costumes. The latter are extravagant 17th century court clothes (or abbreviated versions of them). The last act, in particular, involves masses of curls, feathers, and brocade, with the princess's father looking like Le Roi Soleil himself.

Nureyev's Sleeping Beauty is also extremely vivid in terms of the action. Some of his directorial touches uncover interesting tensions in the noble old plot without destroying that structure in which the ideals of courtesy and generosity are so delicately balanced that a single act of forgetfulness can unleash the forces of evil. The awakening scene is quite wonderful: Nureyev as the Prince racing down a sunny marble staircase into a gloom of sleeping statues, running from figure to figure-pushing this one, spinning that one - until finally he finds the Princess's bed. The Rose Adagio in the first act is also remarkable. The Princess's four suitors have become fops - calculating, indolent, and inclined to be huffy. They don't behave like props for Princess Aurora's cool feats of balance; these four princes seem to be weighing her worth, exchanging little glances of surprise or approval with each other. It's the first time I've ever thought of the scene as sexy, or been moved to tears by the little Princess's growing assurance and excitement. Nureyev also has the princes inadvertently slay each other while they are making sword thrusts into the thick fog which surrounds the wicked fairy Carabosse. A real and irrevocable tragedy to end the birthday festivities.

I'm no Sleeping Beauty expert, and I don't mind some of Nureyev's tampering. For instance, making the Lilac Fairy into a mime role again and having Carabosse played by a woman instead of a man in travesty creates a nicely courtly good-evil metaphor: two beautiful, imperious women making drastic gestures at each other. What I don't much care for is Nureyev's choreography. Where he has substituted his own stuff for Petipa's, the phrasing becomes suddenly abrupt with brainy, arbitrary looking changes of direction and emphasis. Often he seems to want to make a heroic gesture and freeze it at the expense of flow in the dancing. Even some of the jumps he gives himself preclude a resilient landing because of this need to display a grand end pose. Where Nureyev excels is in certain floor patterns for the group-beguiling ways of making, say, a foursome slip into three-plus-one and then into a pair-plus-two. And I must say that his devious style of movement works very well for a solo in which the Prince makes a journey over uncertain ground in order to follow the Lilac Fairy to the enchanted castle.

The dancers of National Ballet of Canada have a poised, wellbred style - no doubt modeled after that of Britain's Royal Ballet. There are no unbridled extensions to be seen; the dancers' limbs make neat, clear paths, seldom far enough away from the center of their bodies to suggest either flamboyance or rapture. Even Carabosse, as played by company director Celia Franca, seems more of a malevolent eccentric than an evil spirit, as she cuddles her troupe of monsters. Veronica Tennant's Princess Aurora is not a glamorous heroine: she's small and goodhearted with beautiful sturdy balances, and her way with rubato phrasing suggests both hesitancy and a melting trustfulness that is extremely touching. Nureyev plays Prince Charming with gallant warmth, although he is overforcing so much of his dancing that you seldom see the smooth ease he used to have.

The company has some excellent dancers, like Karen Kain; some gifted and promising ones, like Frank Augustyn; many very intelligent and expressive ones. There are also some with the frozen demeanor of nervous students. But I'm not in the business of rating and ranking. I even forgive Nureyev his brusque choreography because I so admired his ardent directing.