Ballet Suite

By CLAIRE WRATHALL Tuesday, Oct. 03, 2006

Theater set design is by nature ephemeral, rarely exerting an influence beyond the end of a show's run. Not so the fabled British designer Oliver Messel's scheme for the Royal Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty, first staged in London in 1946.

When it opened in New York City in 1949, wrote the legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn, "Applause greeted the set before anyone danced a step." (Though five other designers of The Sleeping Beauty have been subsequently commissioned, Messel's was a fairy-tale setting the Royal reckoned had never been bettered: to mark its 75th anniversary, the company has re-created the set at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from Oct. 28.)

In the audience at the original London show, the British construction magnate Robert McAlpine was so enchanted by the stage set that he decided he wanted a bit of Sleeping Beauty's magic for his own domain. So he commissioned Messel to design a suite, a penthouse, a pavilion and a roof terrace with fountain for his luxury London hotel the Dorchester. The result, which opened in 1953 and has been restored but never altered, is truly fit for a princess.

The entire scheme is an essay in riotous cod rococo: swagged chintz, contorted gilt (even the bathroom fittings are gold-plated) and vibrant color (the bedroom juxtaposes canary yellow with magenta). The penthouse walls are decorated with gesso oak branches mounted on mirror to evoke the tangled briars that grew up around Sleeping Beauty's castle. There are lamp fittings shaped like birdcages, twig-like door handles on which perch golden birds, a tented ceiling, painted silk walls and an abundance of cherubs and shells, as well as a number of watercolors by Messel, two of them designs for The Sleeping Beauty. It's all utterly romantic and theatrical, if a little over the top — Noël Coward commented on its "somewhat excessive luxe," but found it "terribly exotic." And no end of actors, from Marlene Dietrich to Elizabeth Taylor to Tom Cruise, have stayed there. It's surely the most fantastical hotel suite in London — and the most evocative of an enchanted night's sleep. tel: (44-20) 7629 8888; thedorchester.com