Margot's Princess Aurora

I am in love... Such a Princess Aurora simply does not exist in the ballet world nowadays. Wish I could see Dame Margot Fonteyn dancing The Sleeping Beauty on stage. And this DVD (if it is released as one at all) is a must-find/must-have for me!

Margot Fonteyn as Aurora in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by Marius Petipa at Covent Garden theatre, photo Houston Rogers. London, England, c.1960 {via V&A}

Margot Fonteyn's tutu from Act I of The Sleeping Beauty 1946, designed by Oliver Messel

© ROH Collections {via}

Costume for Princess Aurora in Act l of 'The Sleeping Beauty'

worn by Margot Fonteyn

Designed by Oliver Messel

The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London

1960

Museum no. S.301 - 2001 {via V&A}

Left: Coppelia costume (1954). Right: The Sleeping Beauty costume (1946)

© ROH Collections {via}

"How to put something so visual, so potent with theatrical moment that even film cannot capture it, into plain words? How to explain why it is that when, to a particular strain of music, an ordinary mortal steps forward on one leg, raises the other behind her and lifts her arms above her head, the angels hold their breath?"

(from the prologue of Margot Fonteyn, by Meredith Daneman)

*See also here for Margot's Entrance of Aurora & Rose Adagio...