The Rita - The Princesses

THE RITA THE PRINCESSES Princess Aurora “But the innocent impetuous girl is so charmed by the spindle that she cannot cease to play with it. Suddenly, she pricks her finger. Instantly, she falls to the ground.”The king and queen rush to her... The princess herself has no idea of what has happened. She stirs, looks into her father’s disturbed face, and shakes her head slowly, as if to say, “Don’t worry, nothing is wrong.” Similarly she comforts her distraught mother. To prove that everything is all right, the anxious girl rises and begins to dance again, and there is a clap of thunder. The princess falls into her father’s arms... The princess seems to die.” - George Balanchine “Seizing the spindle, Aurora wields it like a scepter as she dances. But then she pricks her finger and, in a passage reminiscent of the mad scene in Giselle (as well as Nikia’s death scene in Petipa’s La Bayadere [1877]), she dances brokenly and finally falls down, unconscious.” - Sally Banes Princesse de Lamball