Princesses and Politics

Charles Perrault was a mover and shaker in 17th-century Paris. He was closely involved in the establishment of various learned academies, was himself a member of the distinguished Académie Française, and advised King Louis XIV on the matter of fountains for the labyrinth at Versailles. They sound fabulous.

Perrault was a prominent figure in one of the great culture wars, the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. A staunch supporter of the Moderns, Perrault made an impact as rival factions argued vociferously about the merits of classical and contemporary arts in the context of Louis XIV’s reign.

Such a man was not universally loved, and Perrault was eventually ousted from government service. In 1697, with time on his hands, he pulled together Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Tales and stories of the past with morals). The fairy tale was born, or at least the idea of the fairy tale as a distinct, identifiable literary genre.

Since time immemorial, societies have shared cautionary tales, passing down stories, history, and knowledge through oral retellings. Perrault wrote some of these down and gave them his own spin, including La Belle au bois dormant, or Sleeping Beauty, as we know it.

It was Perrault’s version, rather than the 1812 Grimm Brothers' Little Briar Rose, chosen by Ivan Vsevolozhsky when he was looking for a new ballet subject. Vsevolozhsky, director of the Russian Imperial Theatres, put the idea to Tchaikovsky. The composer was “charmed and captivated.” Marius Petipa came on board, and the rest is history.

Perrault's narrative was similar to one by another collector of fairy tales, Italian writer Giambattista Basile. Written 70 years earlier, Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia shares with Perrault’s La Belle au bois the essential ingredient of the sleeping woman discovered by a man of some substance, although Basile went further in relating what might happen to a comatose woman in these circumstances. Talia has children born from the encounter.

Perrault took the more romantic approach we see in Petipa’s ballet although he didn’t come up with the kiss. The Brothers Grimm added that refinement. Perrault also didn’t shy away from a gruesome feature of Basile’s story. A second section in both works involves children in peril of being cooked for an ogre’s supper before everything turns out well. Vsevolozhsky wisely let that go through to the keeper when writing his ballet libretto.

The story as we know it can be traced back to the 14th century, but variants and aspects are dotted throughout history. Opera-goers will recognise the sleeping Brünnhilde of Wagner’s Siegfried as a cousin of Perrault’s princess. She can be found as Brynhild in old Norse legend.

They say there’s no such thing as a new idea, and Sleeping Beauty has continued to inspire a large and eclectic group of creative works. A film short in 1914 called Our Fairy Play featured a family putting on a performance inspired by Sleeping Beauty. A century later Angelina Jolie starred as a Carabosse-like villain in Maleficent, the live-action origin story of the wicked fairy based on Disney’s 1959 animated feature.

Delightfully, in 1966 the first season of the TV series Lost in Space had an episode in which young Will Robinson kisses a sleeping alien princess, inadvertently rousing a horde of soldiers who plan to take over the universe, starting with Earth. (Spoiler alert: doesn’t happen.)

Works that dig into the tale’s troubling undercurrents sit alongside these entertainments. The Australian director Julia Leigh’s 2011 film Sleeping Beauty starred Emily Browning as a student who makes money by allowing herself to be drugged and share a bed with clients. One of Leigh’s influences was the 1961 novella House of the Sleeping Beauties, by Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata.

It's not exactly a repeat of the Quarrel, but there are strongly opposing views on how to read this subject. One side will concentrate on the powerlessness of a sleeping woman, the danger she is in, and her lack of choice in how to lead her life. Alternatively, some will see the story as being so far removed from its darker antecedents that only uplifting allegory remains. Vsevolozhsky, Tchaikovsky, and Petipa’s ballet shows the victory of good over evil and the restoration of order where there was chaos. Love, harmony, and good government. That’s the story.

Vsevolozhsky’s emphasis on order and benevolent rule, and his specific desire to present the production in Louis XIV style, was there to curry favour with the Imperial household. Nevertheless, there is something undoubtedly alluring about the beautiful morality of Vsevolozhsky’s production.  

It's worth remembering, though, that Perrault himself took a less complicated and, frankly, less high-minded position. In the moral that ends his Sleeping Beauty, he suggests that hanging around for 100 years for your ideal man might not appeal.

"Though philosophers may prate
How much wiser ‘tis to wait
Maids will be a-sighing still
Young blood must when young blood will!”