The Sleeping Beauty by Marius Petipa, music by Tchaikovsky

When the Royal Opera House reopened in Covent Garden in 1946 after World War II, the first performance given by the Royal Ballet was none other than Sleeping Beauty. In 2006, the original staging was revived and continues to delight audiences to this day. Frederick Ashton famously cited the pure classicism of Marius Petipa’s 19th-century ballet as a private lesson in the atmospheric art and craft of choreography. Prepare to be dazzled by Tchaikovsky’s sublime score—brilliantly rendered by the orchestra of the Royal Opera House under the masterful baton of Jonathan Lo—and Oliver Messel’s fairytale designs, with a stellar performance from Yasmine Naghdi as the protagonist.