“At the press conference last season announcing her popular appointment as artistic director, Karen Kain was pointedly asked whether the National Ballet of Canada would be going ahead with plans to produce a new version of The Sleeping Beauty. Nimbly avoiding a definitive answer, the erstwhile ballerina reaffirmed her desire to preserve the company’s classical heritage. To some of her listeners, this was a polite way of saying no to her predecessor James Kudelka’s announced intention to re-make yet another of the full-length ballet classics in his own choreographic image… And as much as one might admire the creativity of James Kudelka, the closer we can come to experiencing such a work in its classic state, the better we are likely to understand its classic meaning.”