The Riga Ballet Company of the Latvian National Opera is a great company and on Tuesday night gave a stunning performance of The Sleeping Beauty in Belfast. Admittedly they were cramped on the Grand Opera House stage, most notably in the Garland Dance, where 12 couples were four too many, but fine dancing soon made us forget the near-collisions.
Aelita Himelreiha was an enchanting Princess Aurora, assured and scintillating technically while always suggesting the shy but excited 16year-old at her first dance. She was superbly partnered by Igor Pavlenins, dancing even better as Prince Desire than he did as Jamie in La Sylphide in 1996.
Zane Teikmane, as the Lilac Fairy, was the ideal fairy godmother, dramatically holding the eye with her height, her long limbs impressive in high extension, her slow grace contrasting with the rapid sparkle of the five other fairy godmothers.
All the company seem to have graduated from the Riga Choreographic School and do it credit, with remarkably strong boys in the corps de ballet and splendid soloists, particularly Pavel Vasilchenko and Tatjana Pavlenina in the Bluebird Pas de Deux.
And if Inis Rozin's drag performance as Carabosse seemed scaled for the larger opera house back home, I have never seen so much fun extracted from the roles of Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat.
Airars Leimanis's version of the Petipa choreography was excellent, the majestic Tchaikovsky score was finely played by the Latvian National Opera orchestra under its conductor Aleksander Vilumanis and, if the somewhat perfunctory lighting was no help to Ivars Noviks's backdrops or Inara Gauja's costumes, it was a small detail in a wonderful evening.
The Sleeping Beauty runs until Saturday. To book phone Belfast 241919
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