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Music
Pyotr Il'yich
Tchaikovsky
Choreography
Peter Wright
after Lev Ivanov
Production
and Scenario
Peter Wright
Original
Scenario
Marius Petipa
(after E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nuszknacker
und Mausekönig)
Designs
Julia
Trevelyan Oman
Lighting
Mark Henderson
Conductor
Valery Ovsyanikov
CAST
Herr
Drosselmeyer
Gary Avis
Clara
Iohna Loots
Hans-Peter/
The Nutcracker
Ricardo Cervera
The
Mouse King
David Pickering
The
Sugar Plum Fairy
Miyako Yoshida
The
Prince
Federico
Bonelli
Rose
Fairy
Mara Galeazzi |
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Royal Opera House
Covent
Garden
6
Dec 2005 ‚ 5 Jan 2006
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The
Nutcracker
has long impressed audiences
with its sumptuous set design
and lavish costumes. Upon
viewing the work he had scored
for the first time, Tchaikovsky
proclaimed the staging of
the ballet almost 'too magnificent
‚ the eyes weary from this
luxury'. As imperial period
audiences demanded beauty
and majesty from their Nutcracker
so too do contemporary audiences
harbour expectations of festive
pageantry and ever more transportive
evocations of enchanting kingdoms.
For ballet-going audiences
of all ages, part of the excitement
of Christmas is the discovery
of this year's re-imagining
of The
Nutcracker:
the enlarging of the now monumental
Christmas tree, the blanketing
of the stage with snow-balling
quantities of glitter and
ice, and the festooning of
characters with even grander
wings, finer whiskers and
more fairy-flossy tutus.
As Act I of the Royal Ballet's
production transpired, I remembered
(with a slightly guilty sense
of scrooge-like curmudgeonry)
why it is that modern productions
of the ballet rely on vast
numbers of props, sophisticated
sets with multiple moving
parts, and luxurious costumes:
there's really not terribly
much in the way of ballet
in the opening scenes. And,
as some unfortunate guest
at the Stahlbaum's Christmas
party tripped over an over-decorated
table sending candelabras
crashing to the ground, I
wondered if what The
Nutcracker
needed was not so much to
gild the lily by way of increasingly
extravagant production values,
but perhaps to consider a
choroegraphic update that
would allow the communication
of more of the early mime
through dance, rather than
relying on overly opulent
sets and long passages of
generic merriment ‚ petty
squabbling among kids, Christmas
toasts between adults ‚ in
which little ballet actually
features. Such criticism couldn't
be sustained in the face of
a polished ensemble clearly
revelling in playing mechanical
toys, mischievous mice and
over-excited children, however;
the genial bonhomie travelled
quickly across the footlights,
warming the cockles of even
the most crotchety critic's
heart.
Although the expository vignettes
may have been overly preoccupied
with scene-setting and expressions
of seasonal joviality, once
the dancing got under way
it rewarded attentiveness
with lyrical waltzes, jubilant
lifts and spectacular jumps,
all of which were performed
with exuberance while being
careful not to sacrifice technique
(no mean feat given some of
the heavily encrusted costumes).
Miyako Yoshida's Sugar Plum
Fairy was divinely dainty,
executing the often fiddly
steps with exquisite grace
and emanating the reassuring
benevolence that is a good
fairy's bag. With its breath-taking
fish dives and leaps into
the Prince's arms, her grand
pas de deux with Federico
Bonelli in Act II was easily
the most ravishing moment
of the evening; a reminder
once again that all the stage-dressing
in the world can't outperform
superlative dancing. And although
the Prince is all too often
overshadowed by his female
partner in great ballets,
Federico Bonelli made his
regal presence known through
the beautiful, clean jumps
and supremely confident turns
of his solos. The icing was
put on the cake in the Kingdom
of Sweets with thrilling manËges
and travelling fouettées
from both leads, which were
rapturously received by the
audience.
The other divertissements
in Act II ‚ the Spanish, Arabian,
Chinese and Russian dances
‚ allowed the original choreographer
of The
Nutcracker,
Lev Ivanov, to move away from
a purist neo-Classical vocabulary
and to offer a mixed bag of
exotic cultural delights.
The Royal Ballet can sometimes
appear ill-at-ease when tackling
foreign idioms but in these
four instances, they adopted
the style and expression of
the represented cultures admirably,
even if the Chinese buffoonery
had a parodic hint of Gilbert
and Sullivan about it. The
ensuing Waltz of the Flowers
returned to the delicate and
lyrical artistry that is The
Nutcracker's
trademark with Mara Galeazzi
as a lovely, if occasionally
unsteady, Rose Fairy. Iohna
Loots was a charming Clara,
discovering the fantastical
worlds offered to her by Herr
Drosselmeyer with infectious
wonderment. While always engaging,
Loots seemed a little technically
inexperienced when executing
the more challenging dance
passages, a few jumps and
difficult lifts with the Nutcracker
on occasion lacking in dynamism.
Ricardo Cervera's Nutcracker
was, like Bonelli's Prince,
nobility incarnate, moving
easily from the vigour of
his battle with the Mouse
King (David Pickering, on
fine form) to a sensitive
partnering with the young
Clara.
An early critic of the ballet
dismissed The
Nutcracker
venomously as 'child's prattle'
and, in many respects, it
is a ballet to excite a childlike
imagination, but as audible
sighs of wonder escaped at
regular intervals from the
mouths of adults and children
alike, enchanted by each new
kingdom that Clara and the
Nutcracker passed through,
I was reminded once again
that Christmas makes children
of us all. .
Nina Miall |
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