More than 350 costumes are needed for all of the show’s many characters to come alive.
As this will be the first time that this ballet by Marcia Haydée is presented by Les Grands Ballets, the company has chosen to acquire all the necessary costumes from the Opera Ballet Vlandereen, a company that has previously performed this large-scale production. A choice that will save a considerable amount of time to the company’s costume workshop : "Putting together a classical show of this size is equivalent to the workload required for The Nutcracker. To build it from scratch, we would need more than 20 employees working on this full-time for a year, in order to create all the costumes on time for the show! We only had 6 weeks to dedicate to this ballet," says Mélanie Ferrero, Head of the Costumes Workshop since 2012.
Despite the fact that tutus and costumes were already sewn, a lot of adjustments were needed. "You can have up to three casts for a character, with a dancer performing more than one role in the same night. A tutu needs to be adjusted to fit at least three to four different dancers, which is a considerable amount of work for us," continues Mélanie Ferrero.
Les Grands Ballets’ Workshop has also built numerous pairs of dance shoes and wigs needed for this period ballet. In order to save time, certain shortcuts are thought of to facilitate costume changes throughout the show. For example, a pair of tight and boots will be designed to work for a dancer's different roles, while tunics, hats and wigs will change.
Discover images of the breathtaking costumes that will have this fairytale danced on pointes come to life.
