Like the ballets "Swan Lake" (1876) and "The Nutcracker" (1892), "Sleeping Beauty," which premiered in 1890, was also a commissioned composition and was conceived from the outset as ballet music that could be danced to. With its symphonic, artistically demanding elements, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) placed his ballet music far from a simple "background music" for the stage dancers, but rather - today of course - as a genre on an equal footing with opera and concert. Even if Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" are more often in the foreground in the repertoire of the great opera stages, the composer himself considered "Sleeping Beauty" to be one of his best works.
Based on the fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault, the ballet tells the story of the king’s daughter Aurora, whose curse can only be lifted by the kiss of the prince.