The Sleeping Beauty has always been a period piece. Indeed, the Petipa–Tchaikovsky spectacular imagines ballet itself as period—a single period, stretching into eternity—which is about how most people think of the art form. Boston Ballet does not break the spell. The otherwise hip company offers The Sleeping Beauty’s most enduring staging, by Nikolai Sergeyev, who fled Russia as it turned Soviet, stuffing into his suitcase the notations of almost two dozen classical ballets. Sergeyev fleshed out many of these works for what eventually became the Royal Ballet. From its homely beginnings as the Vic-Wells, the troupe became Royal after it performed The Sleeping Beauty in 1946, with the gracious and ebullient Margot Fonteyn embodying England’s dawn after its long, dark night of war. The story ballet may make light of history, but its own carries weight. Nevertheless, it serves as perfect summer entertainment: a fairy variety show, then a dream ballet and ballroom defilé, for sundry moods, speeds, and sentiments, to some of the most beautiful ballet music ever composed. —Apollinaire Scherr