Royal Ballet's "Sleeping Beauty"

The Royal Opera House in HD Spring Series, distributed by DigiScreen Corporation, will screen one of ballet’s most beloved classics – The Sleeping Beauty, on Saturday, June 21st at 1pm in cinemas across Canada.

The Sleeping Beauty is led by two of The Royal Ballet’s finest dancers; the beautiful Alina Cojocaru stars as Princess Aurora and the dark and handsome Federico Bonelli stars as Prince Florimund.  In this classic ballet, Princess Aurora is cursed at her christening by the evil fairy Carabosse (Genesia Rosato) and is fated to die after pricking her finger on a spindle at her 16th birthday celebration.  Through the intervention of the Lilac Fairy, (Marianela Nunez) the curse of death is commuted to a long sleep, one from which Princess Aurora is awakened by the heroic Prince Florimund.  The extravagant wedding celebrations in the last Act include entertaining moments by other well known fairytale characters.

The famous Sergeyev/ De Valois/ Messel staging was created for Britian’s The Royal Ballet in 1946, from the original 1890 Marius Petipa production in St. Petersburg.  It was revived by Monica Mason and Christopher Newton for the 75th anniversary celebrations of The Royal Ballet in 2006 and recorded at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in front of a full house on Dec 6, 2006.  Tchaikovsky’s glorious score is conducted by Valery Ovsyanikov and played by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The entire experience is captured on cinema grade High Definition with surround sound.

“The year’s big ballet story is The Sleeping Beauty.” – The Guardian

On Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 1pm, The Sleeping Beauty will be shown in Empire and independent theatres in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, London, St. Catharines, Waterloo, Kitchener, Montreal (Ex-Centris) and in seven cities in Eastern Canada. 

In the Toronto Area The Sleeping Beauty will be shown at the Empire Empress Walk 10 Cinemas in North York and Empire Studio 10 at Square One in Mississauga.

Tickets will be available at $19.95 + tax per adult, $16.95 + tax per senior and $9.95 + tax per child. 

For cinema locations and to purchase advance tickets throughout Canada visit http://www.empiretheatres.com.

For the independent theatres please visit http://www.festivalcinemas.ca for Vancouver, http://www.princesscinemas.com for Waterloo and http://www.ex-centris.com for Montreal. 

For information on The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera visit http://www.roh.org.uk For more information on DigiScreen, please visit http://www.digiscreen.ca.