Pittsburgh Ballet's 'Beauty and the Beast' showcases the power of love

Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to celebrate the transformative power of love.

“Beauty and the Beast” is an old French fairy tale which was turned into a magnificent ballet in 1958 by Lew Christensen and the San Francisco Ballet.

“The old moral reads that beauty is only skin deep. So, this ballet says, is beastliness. To love is to be human, and it is no less to humanize,” explained Christensen.

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre will present “Beauty and the Beast” Feb. 14-23 at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center.

The ballet’s artistic director Terrence Orr began his career with “Beauty and the Beast.” “I was first exposed to it when I was a student at San Francisco Ballet and was able to perform in it,” he recalls. “It was a kind of big moment, the first time I was exposed to a full-length story ballet. Lew Christensen was a wonderful musician. He put together a wonderful Tchaikovsky score, every note perfect for the scenes he chose to do. It’s quite a sweet story and something we’re proud to put on.”

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre revived “Beauty and the Beast” in 2015 after acquiring the costumes and sets from San Francisco Ballet with the support of special grants from local foundations.

Company costumier Janet Campbell had a lot of restoration work on her hands, as well as creating a new headpiece for the Beast, to get the show ready for the 2015 performances.

She had more work to do for this season’s revival because some costumes were too worn after the 2015 performances and three rentals of the production by other ballet companies. She and her team have made two new gold silk organza jackets for the Beast to wear in the wedding finale, a more comfortable headpiece for him to wear earlier in the story and a dozen new costumes for the Roses, who dance right before the wedding.

William Moore played the Beast in 2015 and will do so again in the upcoming performances. He says the role is coming back to him well and that he’s enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to be expressive when the Beast’s headpiece covers his face.

Diane Yohe will be dancing Beauty for the first time this month, during the Feb. 22 matinee in the rotating cast system that the company uses. She’s performed starring roles before, but this is the first one for her with a romantic pas de deux with variations and a coda.

“The ballet is the older, original version of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ not the one we know from the Disney movie although the plot and themes of story are the same,” she says. “She’s captive to this beast and falls in love with him even though he’s not the most handsome or attractive person. Basically, love’s not just about appearance. We follow her through being scared and wanting to leave to realizing she’s in love with him and coming back just in time to save him.”