Irina Chistyakova

Rimsky-Korsakov lavished a gorgeous score on this rustic tale of love and the supernatural. This acclaimed 2008 production by the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre marks the opera’s first appearance on DVD. The company’s brilliant staging is modern in its dramatic intensity yet firmly rooted in the traditional heart of the work.

As the fates of a spirited young woman, her fiancé and their idealistic friend intertwine during the Napoleonian invasion, their lives - like every Russian’s - are about to change forever. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, Prokofiev’s opera portrays the tribulations of Russian society as Napoleon’s armies edge closer to the country’s borders. Monumental in scale, his production has a cast of over 400 with 70 principal singers and a massive chorus on stage.

A ball is being held in the royal palace in honor of the birth of a beautiful and charming princess. The fairies present gifts to Princess Aurora, and the seventh fairy, old Carabosse, arrives uninvited at the christening and presents a terrible gift... And so, a hundred years later, the handsome prince, while hunting, finds himself in a sleeping forest, where he awakens the sleeping beauty with a gentle kiss. Choreographic editing by Konstantin Sergeev, staged by the Mariinsky Theatre.