They will give Tchaikowsky's third great ballet in a matinee at 2.30pm as well as an evening presentation at 7.30pm.

Former Festival Ballet dancer Shirley Graham, with ballet master Graham Wright, has re-staged and choreographed the production but they remain faithful to Petipa's original choreography.

Alan Sieveright's scenery and costumes promise a lush and glamorous presentation, also with a finesse.

The scenario is the classic: a King and Queen, desperate for a child are delighted when the Queen bears a daughter, Aurora. Six fairy godmothers are invited to the christening but the evil fairy Carabosse was forgotten.

She vengefully casts a spell on Aurora, who would prick her finger and die. The good Lilac fairy altered the spell so Aurora, instead, would not die, but fall asleep for 100 years - until a handsome Prince awakened her.

"There she lay, so beautiful that he could not turn his eyes away, and he stooped down and gave her a kiss. As soon as he kissed her, Aurora opened her eyes and awoke, and looked at him quite sweetly."

The Sleeping Beauty was the first successful ballet composed by Tchaikovsky. Swan Lake had been his first. It was the first ballet that the great impresario Serge Diaghilev ever saw. He went on to create Ballet Russe, to take Paris by storm, to achieve world fame, and 20th century ballet history is the rest.

The Sleeping Beauty was also the first ballet seen by a sickly eight- year-old child named Anna Pavlova. After the performance she decided that she wanted to become a ballet dancer.

Rudolf Nureyev made his debut in the West dancing in The Sleeping Beauty.

The reopening performance of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1946, following the end of the second World War, was not an opera performance but this ballet.

See our website for details of the two new VFB principals, Sebastien Quemere and Martina Angioloni

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