Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty
Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty
The Gramophone Choice
Czecho-Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra / Andrew Mogrelia
Naxos 8 550490/92 (174' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Andrew Mogrelia is clearly a ballet conductor to his fingertips. His account of The Sleeping Beauty isn’t only dramatic, when called for, but graceful and full of that affectionate warmth and detail which readily conjure up the stage imagery. Moreover, the House of Arts in Košice seems to have just the right acoustics for this work. If the sound is too brilliant the louder passages of Tchaikovsky’s score can easily hector the ear; if the effect is too mellow, the result can become bland. Neither happens here – the ear is seduced throughout and Mogrelia leads the listener on from number to number with an easy spontaneity. The woodwind playing is delightful (try track 9 with its ‘singing canaries’ – so like Delibes in its scoring). At the end of Act 1 the Lilac Fairy’s tune is given a spacious, frisson-creating apotheosis. The alert Introduction to Acts 2 and 3 brings crisp brass and busy strings on the one hand, arresting hunting horns on the other, and what sparkling zest there is in the strings for the following ‘Blind-man’s buff’ sequence, while the famous Act 2 Waltz has splendid rhythmic lift. Act 3 is essentially a great extended divertissement, with Tchaikovsky’s imagination at full stretch through some two dozen characterful dance numbers of every balletic flavour, all played here with fine style.
Additional Recommendation
The Sleeping Beauty – excerpts. The Nutcracker – excerpts. Swan Lake – excerpts
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko
Avie AV2139 (58’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Vasily Petrenko was a shrewd choice of principal conductor for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. These bonbons from the Tchaikovsky ballets don’t offer too many surprises in terms of choice (except perhaps the exclusion of the ‘Rose Adagio’ from Sleeping Beauty) but they do clearly demonstrate the difference Petrenko had already made to the quality of the RLPO’s playing.
Essentially it’s a personalisation process where the articulation of the wind voices (listen, for instance, to the ‘Entrée’ from the Bluebird Pas de quatre in Sleeping Beauty) takes on a really idiomatic colour and cast, and the string-playing sounds freer and fuller. Petrenko’s watchwords are shape and purpose and clarity; there is an elegance and inner life to the playing making everything sound freshly minted. The three great waltzes are pivotal, of course, and they glide across Tchaikovsky’s imperial ballroom with all due suavity and opulence.
The Swan Lake highlights wipe the floor with Gergiev’s pale showing in the complete ballet (Decca): the nobility of the horns emblazoned across the opening Scene, the swagger and sophistication of the national dances with a brilliant trumpet solo in the ‘Danse napolitaine’ and a delightfully folksy lilt to the contrasting Trio of the Mazurka.
The climactic modulation of the Lilac Fairy’s spellbinding pronouncement that love will redeem all is nailed with all the assurance of a young master, but what is thus far missing if you compare someone like Rostropovich in this music (his Sleeping Beauty highlights with the Berlin Philharmonic on DG are simply sensational) is the stamp of real temperament, a daring born of long and intimate familiarity. Give him time. All the signs are favourable.
