Fandom 50 (26): Sleeping Beauty - Carabosse

Sir Matthew Bourne's version of Sleeping Beauty is somewhat different from the usual fairy story.  For a start most of the acts are set in specific times.  So Act 1, which is the christening is set in 1890, so has a very Victorian feel to it.  Act 2, Aurora's coming of age is in 1911, at the height of Edwardian life.  Act 3, one hundred years later, is 2011, when the production was first performed.  And the denouement in Act 4 is very modern.

In addition the characters are slightly different from those traditionally cast.  Carabosse does not act purely out of malice, she may not have been a 'good fairy' but is a rather more complex figure.

The king and queen had been desperate.  They’d wanted a child and when all other means had failed them, they had begged Carabosse for assistance.  She had been happy to help, and proud to think that by her actions she would be accepted into the royal court as the other fairies were.  How wrong she had been.  There was no invitation to come to the christening, no welcome extended to her.  And by implication, no acknowledgement of the child’s origin.  Spurned, her fury knew no bounds.  Her revenge would strike at the very thing this perfidious couple held most dear.