Carolina Alice Brianza, who went by the name Carlotta Brianza, was an Italian prima ballerina, dancing with La Scala in Milan and later with the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
Carlotta Brianza as Esmeralda (c. 1890)
Carlotta Brianza and Pavel Gerdt as Princess Aurora and Prince Désiré in the 1890 première of the Sleeping Beauty.
The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 66, completed in 1889. It is the second of his three ballets and, at 160 minutes, his second-longest work in any genre. The original scenario was by Ivan Vsevolozhsky after Perrault's La belle au bois dormant, or The Beauty Sleeping in the Forest; the first choreographer was Marius Petipa. The premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890, and from that year forward The Sleeping Beauty has remained one of the most famous of all ballets.
Original cast members costumed for Act I. At center is Carlotta Brianza as Aurora. Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1890
The bad fairy Carabosse by Léon Bakst, who created the décor and about 300 costume designs in 2 months for Diaghilev's lavish 1921 production of The Sleeping Beauty in London.
Carlotta Brianza as Princess Aurora and Pavel Gerdt as Prince Désiré, costumed for the Grand Procession of Act III in Petipa's original production of The Sleeping Beauty. (Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1890)
Alexandra Ansanelli as Princess Aurora and David Makhateli as Prince Florimund in a Royal Ballet production of Sleeping Beauty, 29 April 2008.
