Composers · Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Stage · Op. 66 · 1889
The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky · Ballet
Tchaikovsky's full-length ballet score for The Sleeping Beauty, a fairy-tale spectacle whose waltzes and character dances remain a benchmark for orchestral color and sweep.
What to listen for
The score unfolds across a prologue and three acts, following the Sleeping Beauty story: the christening of Princess Aurora, the curse of the fairy Carabosse, the spell of sleep, and the eventual awakening by a prince, ending in a grand wedding celebration.
In the prologue, fairies bring gifts to the infant Aurora in a procession of short dances, each with its own instrumental color, before Carabosse arrives with a sudden, sharp musical interruption that marks her curse.
Act I centers on Aurora's sixteenth birthday, built around the famous Rose Adagio, where she is presented to four royal suitors over a broad, suspended melody that keeps listeners waiting for its resolution. The act ends when Aurora pricks her finger and falls under the spell, the music slowing and thickening into sleep.
Act II, "The Vision," carries a prince through a mysterious forest to a dream appearance of Aurora, in music that shifts from hunting calls to a soft, glowing waltz-like vision before the famous Panorama, a sustained orchestral crescendo carrying him toward the castle.
Act III is a wedding suite of dances, including fairy-tale character numbers such as Puss in Boots and the Bluebird pas de deux, closing with a bright waltz finale and a grand apotheosis for full orchestra.
The story
Tchaikovsky wrote The Sleeping Beauty in 1889 for the Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg, at the invitation of director Ivan Vsevolozhsky, who proposed a ballet based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale. Working closely with choreographer Marius Petipa, who supplied detailed instructions for the music's timing and character, Tchaikovsky composed a score of unusual scale and richness for a ballet of its time. It premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890. Initial reception was mixed among critics, though audiences responded warmly, and the ballet soon became a staple of the Russian repertory. In the twentieth century it grew into one of the most performed classical ballets worldwide, and orchestras frequently present its music in concert form as a suite or in extended selections.
First time hearing it?
- A full ballet score, often heard in concert as a suite lasting 40 to 50 minutes rather than the complete two-plus-hour ballet.
- No intermission is needed for suite performances, though full staged productions include breaks between acts.
- Listen for the Rose Adagio and the Act III waltz, two of the best-known melodies in the ballet repertoire.
- Some concert selections include the famous Panorama, a long orchestral crescendo depicting a journey through an enchanted forest.
- Character dances like the Bluebird pas de deux showcase individual orchestral instruments in short, vivid solos.
Written by OrchestraFinder, reviewed September 2026.