Last Updated on June 23, 2026
English National Ballet Director Aaron S Watkin Interview
The Sleeping Beauty is one of the best-loved 19th-century classical ballets still in repertoire around the world. The Charles Perrault fairy tale about a Princess who is fated to sleep for 100 years until true love awakens her had its first ballet incarnation in imperial Russia, where the great choreographer Marius Petipa turned it into a full-length ballet in a Prologue and three Acts, set to a Tchaikovsky score, which it is difficult not to describe as miraculous. Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty premiered in St Petersburg in 1890.
Since then, there have been many versions of the ballet, either reworkings of the Petipa original or brand new interpretations. British ballet audiences are familiar with The Royal Ballet version – the company’s signature work – which premiered in London in 1946 and brought glamour to a country battered by the privations of World War II.
There is, however, another Sleeping Beauty that is also a worthy jewel in any repertoire: Kenneth MacMillan’s The Sleeping Beauty, to which English National Ballet (ENB) has gained exclusivity in the UK. It comes to the Royal Albert Hall this week (this ballet’s first-ever performances there), and I’ve been talking to ENB artistic director Aaron S Watkin to find out more about the production and how the company got round the difficulties of staging it in such a cavernous, proscenium-free hall.
MacMillan created his Sleeping Beauty for American Ballet Theatre in 1987, and it was taken over by ENB in 2005. He, too, based his luscious version on the Petipa original, but added his own choreography and commissioned sumptuous sets and costumes from his regular collaborator Nicholas Georgiadis.
“It’s a very timeless, elegant signature work for our company”, Watkin told me. “In my vision, I’m, wherever possible, respecting tradition, so I like to look for works that have some affinity with English National Ballet. And in terms of having a quality signature production of Sleeping Beauty, we couldn’t have asked for something better than Kenneth’s”.
One of the many attractions of this production is the number of solo roles it includes, giving many company members the opportunity to shine. There are the fairies, of course, good – The Lilac Fairy, the second lead female role – and bad – Carabosse, a role demanding powerful characterisation; the Jewels added by MacMillan, and the variations by characters from other Perrault fairy tales, like Puss In Boots. which appear in the wedding celebrations of Act III.
There are glorious ensemble numbers, and then there’s the lead role of Princess Aurora, one of the most demanding in the classical canon. Why, I asked Aaron S Watkin, is it so difficult?
“It’s just pure classical ballet. You have to deliver the quality, the line, the precision, and also, in our version, all that inside the English style, which is a very specific style. She’s young in the first act, and then she’s mature, so there’s not a huge depth to Aurora. In the Rose Adagio, she’s on her right leg, the whole time balancing multiple times – it’s tiring. You have to just believe in the simplicity and go for the clarity of what’s happening in the work.”
Prince Desiré is more of a cypher – coming into the action 100 years and a lot of dancing after it all happened, he has one opportunity to establish himself. Watkin explains:
“It’s not a hugely deep role; in the second act, we open with the hunt scene, and then he has a beautiful solo, where he’s kind of showing his turmoil and trying to find what he’s looking for – it’s love. The role is also quite classical”.
I put it to Aaron S Watkin that the most fun role to play, surely, has to be that of Carabosse:
“Yes, and what’s nice is, in a lot of companies, those roles, because they’re quite mature, would just go to older character artists; but what’s been wonderful to see here is, we have a lot of really interesting personalities, some younger, that have a maturity to them.
“So, in Sleeping Beauty, we have our Carabosse being played by men and women in different casts, and I’ve used some of the younger dancers that I feel are capable in this role.”
MacMillan’s original The Sleeping Beauty lasts about three hours; for ENB, Watkin has made judicious cuts to bring it down to just over two-and-a-half hours, including one interval. I asked why, and wondered whether he worried the cuts would break the flow of the ballet. Stressing that they had been approved by Lady MacMillan, the choreographer’s widow and the custodian of his work, Watkin went on,
“60 percent of our audience coming to the Royal Albert Hall are first-time ballet goers. And our production honours both the experienced classical group that’s coming – they’re going to get what they’re expecting and what they know – but also tries to make the ballet a bit more relatable and easier for people to enter into for the first time”.
Watkin has worked with the ENB young music director, Maria Seletskaja (a former dancer), to keep the tempi as Tchaikovsky wanted them, because “I really feel that the first priority is the music, and especially in England, where it’s all about musicality.”
ENB’s The Sleeping Beauty keeps Georgiadis’s sumptuous, eye-filling costumes, but it would be impossible to use his intricate, detailed, massive sets in the Royal Albert Hall. To get around that, ENB followed the example of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker, a staple of Christmas at the RAH.
“We have big screens behind and the floor, and so, we will create the sets virtually with projections, but in a very respectful way. Charlotte MacMillan, Kenneth’s daughter, has been responsible for the illustrations of the projections that we’re using. They’re simple and beautiful, and we’re really marrying the beauty of Georgiadis’ costume designs with the elegance of this.”
English National Ballet is well acquainted with the Royal Albert Hall: its in-the-round production, particularly of Swan Lake, which floods the hall’s huge arena with flurries of swans, is hugely popular and profitable regulars there; but this is the first time ENB presents a ballet on the RAH stage, such as it is. Should it work, then, Aaron S Watkin says, “we’d love to be able to build our relationship and have more continuity there.”
ENB, The Sleeping Beauty is at the Royal Albert Hall 25 – 28 June. Evenings at 7.30 pm, mats Fri & Sat at 2.30 pm. Sun at 2 pm and 7pm
Dur.: 2 hours 40 mins inc one interval. Tickets: £55 – £120
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore
London SW7 2AP
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