Encore Screening from The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden

The Sleeping Beauty

The wicked fairy Carabosse is furious she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening.  She gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die.  The Lilac Fairy makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse: Aurora will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break.

On her 16th birthday, Aurora discovers the spindle and pricks her finger.  She falls into an enchanted sleep, and the whole palace sleeps with her.  One hundred years later, Prince Florimund discovers the palace, hidden deep within a great, dark forest. He wakes Aurora with a kiss.