The Sleeping Beauty (ballet) quality. "The Sleeping Beauty" is Tchaikovsky's longest ballet, lasting nearly four hours at full length (counting the intermissions). The complete score runs practically 3 hours. It is nearly always cut. At the premiere, Tsar Alexander III summoned Tchaikovsky to the imperial box. The Tsar made the simple remark 'Very nice,' which seemed to have irritated Tchaikovsky, who had likely expected a more favorable response. "The Royal Court": "The Fairies": Carabosse, the evil fairy "The Four Suitors": "The Prince's Hunting Party": "Fairy-Tale Characters": Setting Prologue (The Christening)<br>King Florestan XXIV and his Queen have welcomed their first child, Princess Aurora, and declare
Sleeping Beauty Ducks", where she is modified to be the king's stepmother. However, these tales omit the attempted cannibalism. Some folklorists have analyzed "Sleeping Beauty" as indicating the replacement of the lunar year (with its thirteen months, symbolically depicted by the thirteen fairies) by the solar year (which has twelve, symbolically the invited fairies). The basic elements of the story can also be interpreted as a nature allegory: the princess represents nature, the wicked fairy godmother is winter, who puts the Court to sleep with pricks of frost until the prince (spring) cuts away the brambles with his sword (a sunbeam) to