A MAGICAL performance of The Fairy Doll is coming to Albury this weekend.
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Murray Youth Performing Arts will present the classical ballet to the music of Josef Bayer at the Albury Performing Arts Centre on Sunday.
In the story a shop full of toys and dolls come to life and dance at midnight.
After 12 years training with the dance school, Laura Bunn, 15, will be the lead role as The Fairy Doll.
Laura said she looked forward to her 12th annual production in as many years.
“In my first concert I was a gumnut baby in A Bush Christmas,” she said.
“This year I’m most looking forward to the Pas de trois (a French term for a dance in ballet between three people).”
Laura will perform with her dance teachers Meegan Strauss and Caroline Ellis in the Pas de trois.
The Fairy Doll was premiered at the Vienna Court Opera on October 4, 1888, a ballet which owes its inspiration to E.T.A Hoffman’s 1815 story the Sandman in which a mechanical doll comes to life.
Composed by the Austrian Josef Bayer the score has a regimental music flavour and was to prove the greatest ballet success for the Vienna Court Opera; still being widely performed.
Anna Pavlova danced her version of the Fairy Doll on her worldwide tours in the 1920s.
Murray Youth Performing Arts director Libby Ellis said work began on the ballet in March.
Mrs Ellis said more than 120 students aged from two-upwards would participate in the concert this year.
She said there were soldier dolls, Spanish dolls, baby dolls and drumming bunny dolls among myriad roles.
“There’s lots of solo parts and we’ve been working towards it since March,” she said.
“Everyone has worked so hard this year.”
A selection of contemporary, tap, jazz and lyrical performances will follow the classical ballet component of the concert.
The Fairy Doll runs at the Albury Performing Arts Centre on Sunday from 2pm.
Tickets are available from Murray Youth Performing Arts studios.
- JODIE BRUTON