The Bolshoi Ballet does ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Though its most popular version is the 1959 animated Disney film, the basic story of "Sleeping Beauty" dates back hundreds of years. Even before the French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703) wrote his own version, the tale was more than three centuries old.

Ballet fans, though, know the folk tale through the work of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whose work premiered in 1890 and remains one of his most popular works.

And a production that mixes Tchaikovsky with Russia's Bolshoi Ballet is, for ballet fans at least, the best of all possible worlds. Which is exactly what are moviegoers can expect to experience on Sunday, beginning at 12:55 p.m., at the Regal Cinemas theater at Northtown Mall.

The production was choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich, and the role of Princess Aurora — the character of the ballet's title — is danced by Olga Smirnova. And the music, of course, is all Tchaikovsky.

But the story belongs to the ages.