My First Sleeping Beauty - Peacock Theatre

My First Sleeping Beauty

This April audiences can once again enjoy a stand-out ballet as part of the “My First...” range presented by the English National Ballet. This time around the production takes the form of Tchaikovsky’s enduring classic “Sleeping Beauty”, which will allow younger audiences with theatre tickets the opportunity to step into a world of fairy-tale as wonderful backdrops and memorable characters come to life on the stage of the Peacock Theatre. With the Royal Ballet soloist Matthew Hart as the show’s creator, plus costumes designed by the late Nicholas Georgiadis, this is something that will enchant young ballet fans and give them something to remember.

Matthew Hart has won numerous awards for his work over the years and is perhaps best known for the likes of “Peter and the Wolf”, a children’s ballet that appeared at the Royal Ballet School in the mid-1990s and was adapted by the BBC in 1996, though he has also worked with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the English National Ballet and the Hong Kong Ballet, among others.  He was also the recipient of awards like The Frederick Ashton Choreographic Award and the Jerwood Foundation Award, plus many more, in an illustrious career.

But whilst the world of “Sleeping Beauty” is brought to life by his design, it will be the wonderful costumes of Nicholas Georgiadis that also delight audiences. Though he died over ten years ago in 2001 he managed to create an abundance of well known costumes from ballets likes “Romeo and Juliet” and Manon” from the 1950s to 2001, working for some of the best name in the business. So it is only right that his designs are honoured in a work that will be the first foray into ballet for a number of young theatregoers.

“My First Sleeping Beauty” appears at the Peacock Theatre in the same year as other shows like “Wah! Wah! Girls” and “Umoja – the Spirit of Togetherness” and runs at the venue from 3rd April 2012 to 13th April 2012.