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DanceNovember 2007 Wall of thorns by Laura Jacobs On American Ballet Theatre's Sleeping Beauty at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.
“In front of each fairy was a golden plate and a golden
casket made to hold her knife, fork and spoon. These caskets
were beautifully carved and engraved, and each one was of a
different shape… .
they were the King’s presents
to the fairy godmothers.”
—C. S. Evans, The Sleeping Beauty
In the same time and place that the Imperial goldsmith Carl Fabergé was making incomparable eggs, flowers, and follies for Czar Alexander III and Nicholas II after him, a Frenchman named Marius Petipa was making incomparable ballets for the Czar’s Imperial Theatre. As maître de ballet for forty years, until his retirement in 1903, Petipa made over fifty classical dance entertainments—long evenings, history tells us, filled with magical effects that included fountains spouting, fires burning, oceans roaring (nothing was too expensive for a Czar). Of ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 26 November 2007, on page 46 Copyright © 2009 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/wall-of-thorns-3681
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 The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices Already a print subscriber? click for online access by Laura Jacobs On Alexei Ratmansky, Rabbit and Rogue at American Ballet Theatre, and Jupiter Symphony at Pennsylvania Ballet. New from The New Criterion: ‘Free speech in 
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