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WHO ARE ALL THE GUESTS AT THE WEDDING?

From the original Petipa scenario

On stage as the curtain-rises: The King and Queen, the newlyweds with the wedding party, and the Fairies

a. Diamond
b. Gold
c. Silver
d. Sapphire

The carousel of Louis XIV: Turks, Ethiopians, Africans, and Americans

1. Bluebeard and his wife

2. Puss in Boots

2a. The "Marquis de Carabas", in a sedan chair, with his servants
(The Miller's Son, to whom Puss always refers by this title)

3. Goldilocks and Prince Avenant
(Not Perrault characters, a story about a hard-working suitor)

4. Donkey-skin and Prince Charming
(A little-known Perrault tale about a princess in disguise)

5. Beauty and the Beast
(Not Perrault characters, originally written by Straparola, then retold by Mmes. de Villeneuve and de Beaumont)

6. Cinderella and Prince Fortuné

7. The Blue Bird and Princess Florine
(Guest Stars from the Fairy Tales of Mme. D'Aulnoy)

8. The White Cat, carried in on a velvet pillow by four large servants
(Not a Perrault character, another d'Aulnoy tale)

9. Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

10. Scruffy Ricky and Princess Aimee
(Little-known Perrault characters - an ugly man and a beautiful woman)

11. Hop O'My Thumb and his Brothers
(Not Tom Thumb, but boys who outwit an Ogre and take his 7-league boots)

12. Mr. and Mrs. Ogre

13. Fairy Carabosse in her chariot drawn by rats

14. Fairy Candide and her genies

15. Fairy Violente and her genies

16. The chariot of Fairy Canaries and her suite

17. The Lilac Fairy drawn by four large genies

These are the original wedding guests from the 1890 production; later productions fiddle with the guest list, giving Aurora a brother Florimund and two sisters and having Ivanushka (Innocent Ivan) and his two brothers from The
Little Hump-Backed Horse show up; sometimes all of Bluebeard's wives are present. The Diaghilev 1921 production even had interpolations from The Nutcracker. Lately, characters from television and motion pictures have been creeping into the crowd..

BONUS SECTION: WHO AND HOW MANY FAIRIES?

1. Candide (honesty)

2. Coulante (Wheat flour - beauty - face powder)

3. Miettes (Breadcrumb - plenty - a Russian tradition to sprinkle them on the
baby)

4. Canaries (lovely voice)

5. Violente (energy and authority)

6. Lilac (wisdom - a Russian tradition is to place the baby under a lilac bush)

7. Carabosse (the elements - a survival from ancient earth-worship)

8. Diamond

9. Gold

10. Silver

11. Sapphire

This page was last updated 1/3/98.
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