The Sleeping Beauty, a crowning jewel of Marius Petipa's career, is often considered the finest achievement of the Classical ballet. It is a grandiose and refined blending of the traditional mime, expressive pas d'action and spectacular divertissements in a lavish theatrical setting. Tchaikovsky was delighted with the invitation to write the music for a ballet based on Charles Perrault's well-known fairy tale. A baby princess, condemned at her christening by an evil fairy to prick her finger and die on her 16th birthday, is saved by the gift of the good Lilac Fairy, who declares the princess will only sleep until awakened by the kiss of a prince. The fairy tale, replete with a king and queen, fairies both good and evil, a beautiful princess and dream prince, magical stage effects, and courtly splendor, lent itself perfectly to the full evening ballet that was Petipa's pride.

By now a familiar name in the capital region, this company of 50 returns to Stage One with two works by Tchaikovsky. "The Russian National Ballet, directed by Elena Radchenko, is a cut above many of its rivals” (Washington Post), as they have proven time and again at the Harris Center. The company was founded in Moscow during the transitional period of Perestroika in the late 1980s, when many of the great dancers and choreographers of the Soviet Union's ballet institutions were exercising new-found creative freedom by starting new, vibrant companies.The legendary Bolshoi principal dancer Elena Radchenko was selected by Presidential decree to assume the first permanent artistic directorship of the company and she has steered the company unfailingly ever since, upholding the grand national tradition of the major Russian ballet works and developing new talents throughout Russia.