‘Sleeping Beauty’ charms at the Academy of Music

Philadelphia Ballet opened its run of artistic director Angel Corella’s Sleeping Beauty Thursday at the Academy of Music. As the name suggests, it’s a stunner.

But it’s not so much a ballet for children as one might expect from a fairy tale, unless the children are ballet fans.

For example, we don’t even meet Aurora, the beauty in question charmingly danced by Nayara Lopes, until the second act.

Set to the famous Tchaikovsky score, Sleeping Beauty opens with a first act that relies heavily on divertissements, the ballet technique of highlighting dances that have little (sometimes nothing) to do with the story. So it takes a long time to get into the plot.

Here, a number of fairies take to the stage to welcome the infant Aurora with gifts, and to show off their dancing styles. Among Thursday’s highlights were Alexandra Heier, a powerful, dynamic Fairy of Vitality; and Kathryn Manger, the Fairy of Eloquence, who flitted and floated across the stage like a butterfly with impressively fast, difficult pointe work.

Finally, the story takes off when the vengeful Carabosse shows up like the Wicked Witch of the West in a carriage pulled by leaping simian attendants. She is angry that she wasn’t invited to the ceremony, so she places a curse on the baby princess, who is spared from death by the Lilac Fairy (Dayesi Torriente).

» READ MORE: BalletX shines in its sleek winter season run with two world premieres

Act 2 is all about Lopes’ Aurora: girlish, smiley, energetic, and dancing precisely. She is delightful — and doomed. We can see the spindle from all parts of the theater, and yet she pricks herself and falls asleep for 100 years, as predicted.

It’s nice to see the Philadelphia Ballet use different opening-night casts. Jack Thomas, as Prince Desiré, paired well with Lopes, although the story becomes even less believable when he enters the picture. How did the Lilac Fairy convince him to love this beautiful girl in the middle of a long sleep? How did Aurora reciprocate the love of someone she just met upon awakening?

That said, there are many beautiful sections to this Sleeping Beauty, including the famous garland dance, performed by some of the younger company members. (Some companies use children in that piece. I prefer the younger cast, although older dancers can perform more complex steps.)

Sleeping Beauty is long, and a good number of audience members left after the second intermission, but Act 3 has its own charms. They include some wedding guests we recognize, such as Red Riding Hood (the again appealing Manger) who is chased by the Wolf (Austin Eyler); Puss in Boots (Russell Ducker) and the White Cat (So Jung Shin, whose feet are perfectly arched) perform an adorable duet. The best dancing came from Ashton Roxander, whose light jumps and expressive arms embraced the role of the Bluebird, paired with Thays Golz as Princess Florine.

Corella choreographed this Sleeping Beauty in 2017, one of many full-length ballets he reworked. The program notes that Corella’s work is based on the classic steps by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, but this one feels more classic than Corella. The steps in many of the sections are very close to the Petipa ones at other companies, or even at the Philadelphia Ballet, which last performed the Petipa choreography in 2007.

Slowly but surely, Philadelphia Ballet is adding more dancers of color. Lopes is the company’s first Black female principal dancer in decades, and it’s wonderful to see her as the lead. The Precious Stones trio featured Fernanda Oliveira, and the corps sections included a number of dancers of color. For all the angst about changes the ballet world, the stage was awash with talent.

Philadelphia Ballet in “Sleeping Beauty.” Through March 12 at the Academy of Music. 240 S. Broad St. $25-$241. 215-893-1999 or kimmelculturalcampus.org.

An earlier version of the article incorrectly identified the company’s first Black female principal dancer. It was Debra Austin.