Sleeping Beauty Ballet

After receiving a joyful email telling us that classes on Thursday were cancelled due to the lecturer being ill, myself and some classmates decided to indulge our cultural sides and go to the ballet!
Scottish Ballet were performing 'Sleeping Beauty' at Edinburgh Festival Theatre.

Synopsis.
Everyone knows the general story, a beautiful princess is cursed by an evil witch to prick her finger and die by her 16th birthday. The curse is deflected by a good fairy, so that instead of dying, she will simply sleep for 100 years, when she will then be awakened by true love's kiss.
In Scottish Ballet's production, 4 would-be suitors serve as 'guardians' when she goes into her sleep. As you can imagine, they initially aren't happy when another man shows up to awaken her with a kiss! Luckily, the Prince has rounded up 4 other fairytale maidens, who prove welcome distractions to the suitors! FYI Red Riding Hood is a vamp!

This was the first ballet I've ever been to, and I really didn't know what to expect. Was 'Sleeping Beauty' going to be too childish for me to appreciate? Would I get bored with all dance and no talking? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding "NO!"!
The first thing that surprised me was how much of the music I actually recognised! As a big fan of the Disney film, I was surprised to learn that Walt Disney had used mostly Tchaikovsky's music to form the soundtrack for the film!

I soon became engrossed in the beautiful dancing, and the attention to detail that had gone into the set and costume design. With no dialogue, symbolism was used to demonstrate many things, such as the gift that each fairy was blessing Princess Aurora with.
I did find that I was grateful for the programme that I bought, as it provided a synopsis of the performance. I found that I understood a lot more of what was going on due to reading this beforehand, as the story was slightly different to any 'Sleeping Beauty' story I had heard before.

Overall, I found it a fantastic way to spend an afternoon, and at a reasonable price (Upper circle student tickets were £17). This particular ballet is suitable for adults and children (although I probably wouldn't recommend for young children).
It has certainly whetted my appetite to see more ballet performances!