Sleeping Beauty takes seasonal approach to theme of good and evil

Aurora succumbs to the power of the curse in the Australian Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty.

Picture a world where humans and otherworldly creatures happily co-exist. Lose yourself in a fantasy realm built on the myths and mystery of the East - India, China, Russia and Persia - peopled by fairies with the power to alter their size at will and communicate with the birds, animals and other beings.

Enter the world of Princess Aurora - the ultimate princess ballerina, played by Lucinda Dunn, of the Australian Ballet - and Damien Welch, her handsome prince. The traditional princess of the Charles Perrault fairy tale frolics in an Oriental setting but her idyll is shattered when a seductive fairy carrying a black rose casts an evil curse.

The land darkens, and becomes bleak and icy. The 16-year-old Aurora is ordained to sleep in a frozen world until she is awoken 100 years later by a kiss which also releases the world into spring.

In the Australian Ballet's production, the message, from choreographer Stanton Welch and the late, New Zealand-born designer Kristian Fredrikson, is the battle between good and evil, interpreted as a power struggle between seasons - the sisters Carabosse, the Queen of Winter, and Lilac, Queen of Dawn and Spring.

The Auckland season of the spectacular ballet is an apt choice for the final offering from Fredrikson, one of our most creative sons.

It ends the cycle of his career, which began in 1964 with an invitation from AB founding director Peggy von Praagh to design The Sleeping Beauty's Act 3, Aurora's Wedding, often performed in its own right. That started a 42-year relationship between Fredrikson and the Australian Ballet.

Fredrikson worked with some impressive partners, headed by Graeme Murphy of Sydney Dance Company, with whom he created reinterpretations of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake (for the AB); and a blossoming partnership with Stanton Welch.

It ended with the realisation of a dream - the Tchaikovsky Trilogy: The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Stanton Welch's Swan Lake, for the Houston Ballet, which he achieved on the eve of his death in November. Swan Lake premiered in February this year.

Fredrikson remained connected to his home country, designing works for the RNZB, quietly proud of the retrospective of his work at the Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt in 2003. He bought New Zealand fabrics for The Sleeping Beauty, elated and inspired by the success of The Lord of the Rings.

His dark genius is realised in the glorious sets and garb for a pageant of princesses, princes, Ginger Tom Cat and slinky White Puss, Bluebird and Canari Fairy in the extravaganza, with only one tutu in the whole show.

He was excited by Welch's talent as a storyteller, his reinvention of the traditional story in aligning it with the seasons and adding characters previously only showcased in the wedding celebrations of Act 3.

From the theatrical background of Australia's "Dance Dynasty" - his parents were dancers Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch, and his brother Damien is the handsome Prince in this ballet - Welch was practically born on stage. His intimacy with the story stems from his first, preschool appearance as a mouse in Act 3 (and crying when his mother "died" on stage).

Recognised early as a choreographer of note, Welch was created the AB's resident choreographer in 1995 and artistic director of the Houston Ballet in 2003. His Madame Butterfly has become a signature work, staged by companies the world over, including the RNZB in 2004.

His collaboration with Fredrikson began with his first commission for the AB in 1991, Of Blessed Memory, which was voted best new work by readers of British Dance and Dancers magazine.

The Sleeping Beauty is Aurora's story and audiences will see a dancer in her prime in Lucinda Dunn, for whom it was choreographed.

Dunn has returned from wowing audiences in the 11th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, where she danced with Christchurch-born Matthew Lawrence. Dunn and Welch will take the lead roles which, on alternate nights, will be danced by Lawrence and his real-life partner Gaylene Cummerfield, also originally from Christchurch.

The Sleeping Beauty season sees a liaison between the dance communities of Australia and New Zealand - an Australasian dance circuit. It is the first Australian Ballet season here since Manon at the Aotea Centre in 1999.

* The Sleeping Beauty, with the Australian Ballet, Civic Theatre, today until Sunday, 7.30pm, except Sun; Sat & Sun 1.30pm matinees