No Ordinary Nutcracker - Duchy Ballet's 20th Anniversary Performance

Sara-Maria Barton as Sugar Rum Cherry

Author Zoe Green Photography

© 2018 Duchy Ballet
Reproduced with kind permission of the company

Duchy Ballet  The Nutcracker Hall for Cornwall, 10 March 2018, 19:30

In my very first blog post just over 5 years ago I reviewed Ballet West's performance of The Nutcracker at the Festival Theatre in Pitlochry.  The ballerina in that performance was Sara-Maria Barton and she danced brilliantly. It is a long way to Pitlochry from Clegg and Compo Land but that show was well worth the journey. Today I travelled approximately the same distance in the opposite direction to see another performance of The Nutcracker - this time by Duchy Ballet. Again, Barton was the lead dancer.  Once again she danced brilliantly as did everybody. Yet again, the show was worth every single millimetre of the journey.

Tonight's show was no ordinary Nutcracker.  Shortly after the house lights dimmed and the music started my row of the stalls was bathed in light as Mr and Mrs Stahlbaum's guests stepped in front of us. In a questionnaire that was circulated to the audience, we were asked "What was the most memorable part of Duchy Ballet's Nutcracker and why?" Not an easy question to answer because there was much that was memorable but I wrote down that entrance because it invited the audience into the show allowing us to feel part of the story.   It was the first of many clever touches by the choreographer and producer, Terence Etheridge.

Another difference in Etheridge's version is that Clara was quite grown up. Her role was danced appealingly on Saturday night by Grace Hazeldine. Drosselmeyer - slightly sinister in most productions and sometimes a little dotty - was danced dashingly by Jamie Constance.  In this production, he was a tall, slender and handsome ballet student - not a wizened wizard or batty inventor.  There were some lovely little touches such as Clara gently cradling her nutcracker, Bethany Hoskins, Kira Allen and Amy Shakerley as mechanical ballerinas, Stuart Strongman and Amy Robinson as a soldier automaton  and his vivandière and some of the youngest dancers holding a Roman numeral turning in sequence to represent the passing of the hours up to midnight.

Strongman led his soldiers into a fierce battle with the rodents led by Riley McLoughlin. In my review of Scottish Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker I said that Lez Brotherston's vermin are the best in the business (see Newcastle Nutcracker (16 Feb 2018). Well Duchy Ballet's were pretty fearsome too. But for Clara's intervention they would have won the day in Truro. She seemed to show a pang of remorse after she had dispatched King Rat which made me warm to her all the more.

The first act ended traditionally with a blizzard of snowflakes with Laura Miners as their queen. Joined on stage by young dancers bearing lanterns they were quite charming.  Nothing like last week's "beast from the east".

Although Etheridge had made the changes that I mentioned above, tailored the choreography and tweaked the libretto to suit his dancers, the first act would have been recognizable to Petipa and Ivanov.  The music was Tchaikovsky's. The story was based on Hoffmann and Dumas.  The second act was rather different.  For a start there was live music provided by the talented students of Truro School Senior Jazz Orchestra conducted by their teacher Peter Thompson.  Instead of Tchaikovsky's composition they played Duke Ellington's adaptation of Tchaikovsky's score. In place of the kingdom of the sweets there was a jazz café imaginatively designed by Sandra Goodenough.  In substitution of a Sugar Plum Fairy there was a Sugar Rum Cherry danced quite deliciously by Barton.

I should stress, however, that though the link with Tchaikovsky, Petipa and Ivanon was stretched it was never strained to breaking point. Tchaiovsky's tunes remain recognizable in Ellington's variations. In traditional productions the Spanish dance represents chocolate, the Arabian coffee and the Chinese tea.  Etheridge extended the analogy to all the divertissements so that we had "Manhattan Sunrise", "Sassy Sangria", "Bucks Fizz" and "Liquorice Cocktail" as well as other concoctions to the dance of tje mirlitons, flowers and all the other familiar pieces.  All the divertissements delighted me but if I had to choose a favourite it would be the Chinese dance.  It is seldom done well because the music is tingly and often it is clowned.  Etheridge created a children's dance which suited both mood and music.  I should add that I was greatly impressed by the strength and skills of the waiters, Strongman, McLoughlin and, Constance though I am not sure that their dance could be described as a divertissement.

It was a joy was to see Barton again.  I had greatly enjoyed her performances as Sugar Plum, Odette-Odile and Juliet for Ballet West (see Ballet West's "The Nutcracker" 25 Feb 2013 and Thinking our Loud about Ballet West 8 Feb 2016, Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014 3 March 2014 and Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet  1 Feb 2015). She has now moved to Glasgow to pursue other interests and no longer performs with that company.  Despite outstanding performances by Natasha Watson and Uyu Hiromoto, I had missed her very much.  Well, her presence last night in Cornwall more than made up for her absences over the last two years in Scotland.  In a rôle created especially for her she seemed to dance better than ever.  Certainly, she delighted me more than ever.

Because this year is the 20th anniversary of Duchy Ballet, Kay Jones, the artistic director, came on stage after the curtain call. She congratulated the cast and the musicians from Truro School on their performance.  She acknowledged the massive contributions of Sianne Strasberg, Maureen Pascoe and Terence Etheridge to the company.   She announced that the Hall for Cornwall will close for several years  from July for extensive renovations during which time the company will require a new temporary home and perhaps new venues.  She appealed to the audience to complete the feedback questionnaire that I mentioned in the second paragraph so that informed decisions could be made as to how the company should use that time.

As I noted in Ballet in Cornwall 17 Sep 2016, Duchy Ballet is very important to Cornwall as it provides stage experience for talented students and an opportunity for Cornish residents to see high quality ballet locally. However, Duchy Ballet is also important to the rest of the country for three reasons.  First, students who have danced with Duchy Ballet study, work and teach elsewhere.  Secondly, the company has developed an audience in Cornwall not just for its own performances but also for those of Birmingham Royal Ballet's southern tour and other companies too.  Thirdly, Duchy Ballet has created works on Cornish themes like The Mermaid of Zennor and the Mousehole Cat that might otherwise never have been made.  It is therefore in everybody's interest to support the company. For those who wish to do so there are Friends of Duchy Ballet, "Sponsor a Dancer" and other fund raising schemes.

Thinking out Loud about Ballet West

A few miles outside Oban lies the village of Taynuilt. I spent a day there on 31 August 2013 before catching a McBrayne ferry to the Isle of Mull.  I wrote about my visit in Taynuilt - where better to create ballet? 31 Aug 2013.  The reason I came to Taynuilt is that Ballet West is there.  That school must be one of the most remarkable educational institutions in the United Kingdom. It offers degrees in dance and higher national diplomas in professional dance performance to residential students, dance training through its associate programmes to children and young people in Glasgow and Edinburgh and summer schools in Taynuilt and outreach classes to children, young people and adults at various venues in the Highlands.

The training that appears to be available at Taynuilt is particularly rich in that the staff includes Daniel Job, who danced with the Royal Danish Ballet and the Ballets des Marseille and with such greats as Roland Petit, Kenneth MacMillan and even George Balanchine, and Olga Voloboueva who trained at the Vaganova Academy and danced with the Mariinsky Ballet when it was known as the Kirov.

The best testimonials for an educational institution are the achievements of its students and last year the only British finalist in the Lausanne International Ballet Competition was Natasha Watson who has now graduated from Ballet West. I have followed the career of this talented young woman for some time and celebrated her success in the Genée in Yet More Good News from Ballet West - Natasha Watson's Medal in the Genée 30 Sept 2013 and her entry for Lausanne in Natasha Watson in Lausanne 15 Nov 2014. Another graduate of Ballet West is Sarah Mortimer who dances with Ballet Theatre UK. I first came across this artist in Ballet Theatre UK's Little Mermaid at the Atkinson and wrote about it in Pure Delight - BTUK's Little Mermaid in Southport 27 April 2014 and I have been following her career ever since. Ms Mortimer also did well in the Genée in a previous year and I should mention in passing that Ms Watson is by no means the only medallist (see Ballet West's Competition and Awards page), In fact, on Saturday evening I shook hands with three of them: Ms. Watson and her teachers, Jonathan Barton and his sister Sara-Maria Barton.

One of the reasons why Ballet West achieves so much is that it gives its students and associates touring experience through its performance company. Northern Ballet School offers its students performance experience in Manchester City Ballet (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014 and Manchester City Ballet's Giselle 12 Dec 2015) and, of course, the Central School of Ballet does the same with Ballet Central (see Dazzled 3 May 2015 and Central Forward 25 March 2013).  At the beginning of every year Ballet West tours Scotland and I have been coming to Scotland for these tours since 2013. In fact the first post in this blog was on the company's performance of The Nutcracker in Pitlochry (see Ballet West's "The Nutcracker" 25 Feb 2013). I also reviewed their Swan Lake in Swan Loch - Ballet West's Swan Lake, Pitlochry 1 March 2014 3 March 2014 and Rome and Juliet in Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet 1 Feb 2014.

Last Saturday I saw Ballet West perform The Nutcracker again in Stirling.  The 2013 production had been good but this production was even better. It was tight and slick and could stand comparison with that of any professional company. Indeed, in my humble and totally ill informed North Country opinion as some of the metropolitan toffs who sound off about dance  would have it, in some respects it was even better.   Of course, it did have pros - Mr Barton who danced the Snow King and Herr Stahlbaum partnering Ms Watson as Frau Stahlbaum and the Snow Queen, Sara-Maria Barton as the Sugar Plum who was partnered by Ballet Cymru's Andrea Battagia and Andrew Cook, a graduate of Ballet West whom I had greatly admired for his performance in Swan Lake two years ago who danced Drosselmeyer and the Russian divertissement in Act II.

One of the reasons why I like this version of The Nutcracker so much is that it is faithful to its libretto and the choreography of Ivanov and Petipa. Though it had some delightful Scottish touches like Mother Ginger who shook Clara vigorously by the hand, draped a red shawl round Clara's neck and decanted a gaggle of associates from her ample skirts there were none of the gimmicks of other productions that tend to get my goat. There were, for example, no rodent kings clinging onto the dirigible into Act II.  Clara does not morph into the Sugar Plum but remains childlike. The Stahlbaums remain the Stahlbaums of somewhere in Mitteleuropa rather than the Edwards of Bramhope. All credit in that regard to Mr. Job, the choreographer, whom I had the pleasure of meeting after the performance.

I think on Saturday I saw some stars in the making.   Uyu Hiromoto who danced in the snow scene and as Columbine in Act I and was the dew drop fairy in Act II, Owen Morris who was Rat King, accompanied Andrew Cook in the Russian divertiseement and also danced the Arabian and Alice Flinton who was an adorable Clara.  She is only a first year HND student yett she already knows how to hold an audience. We were enchanted by her mime scene where she recounts the battle with the mice and how she clobbered King Rat. She was Gita's man (or in this case) woman of the match.

In any production of The Nutcracker it is the children who often make or break the show for they take on so many roles. In this show they took on even more than usual and coaching them all cannot have been easy. They brought real joy to the stage but they kept their discipline. Whoever drilled those kids deserves enormous applause.  I think a large part of the credit goes to Ms Barton who told me that she had been teaching as well as dancing Sugar Plum that evening when I met her after the show but there were others and if I had flowers to throw they would have got some.

I should say a word about the sets, costumes and lighting.  They were magnificent, particularly the party scene which reproduced the Romanesque columns from the video that appears above.   The backdrop of the kingdom of the sweets was a vivid floral design.  The programme says that these were designed by Amelia Seymour.  There are a lot of tutus of various colours in this show not to mention the mouse king's outfit and period clothes of the party guests. More flowers for the wardrobe team.   There was also some clever lighting particularly in the transition scenes in Act I which was designed by Matthew Masterson.

The production is moving on to Inverness on the 11 Feb, Glasgow on the 13, Greenock on the 14 and Edinburgh on the 20. If you live anywhere near those places you should do yourselves a favour and get tickets for the show.  Gita and I drove 250 miles to see it and it was well worth the journey.

Ballet West's Romeo and Juliet

Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, 31 Jan 2015

I've seen three performances by Ballet West: The Nutcracker in 2013, Swan Lake last March and now Romeo and Juliet. The other two were good but this is the best by far. This is a very ambitious production with a big cast including some very young children. It would have been a credit to a full time performing company. As most of the dancers are students Ballet West's achievement is all the more remarkable.

Several factors made this production special.  Excellent choreography by Daniel Job: dramatic and with plenty of detail that is often missed by other productions. Great sets by Ryan Davies and Sara-Maria Barton. A well trained and coordinated corps where even the children performed like pros. Sparkling dancing not only from the principals Jonathan and Sara-Maria Barton but also from the soloists Owen Morris as Tybalt, Andremaria Battaglia as Paris, Miranda Hamill as the nurse, Isaac Bowry as Lord Capulet, Kathrine Blyth as his wife, Andrew Cook as Prince Escalus and Karen Terry as Friar Lawrence.

This is a ballet that demands not only great virtuosity from the principals with no less than 4 major pas de deux (the ball, the balcony, the bedroom and the crypt) but also great drama. Juliet grows up literally overnight. A playful adolescent teasing her nurse in the first Act. A woman who knows her mind and is capable of taking enormous risks in defiance of her father in the next. Romeo - passionate in love but also in fury. Drama also from the soloists. Katherine Blyth's grief at her son's death. Her anger on seeing his killer. Her performance gripped the audience - or at any rate it gripped me. Bowry who I had previously seen as Drosselmeyer and Rothbart showed he can act as well as dance. So too could Cook whom I had also admired very much last year.

Because the cast is large and the sets were elaborate the show needed a big stage. The Macrobert is not a small auditorium but it did not do justice to the show. This production has already toured China where it was no doubt danced in bigger auditoria. Probably the best place to see this show is the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow where the tour concludes on Valentine's day. This will be a memorable performance and if you live in Glasgow or anywhere near it you really should try to be there.

In the programme the company's founder and artistic Gillian Barton wrote how it started from humble beginnings in 1991 and how it has achieved great things with tours of China, finalists and medallists in important competitions and graduates in several major companies. Tonight I met Gillian Barton for the first time. Others including one of the members of my class at Northern Ballet had spoken very highly of that lady and I can quite see why.

Further Reading

4 Fev 2015 Kenneth Speirs Brother and sister look ahead to Romeo and Juliet performance in Paisley Daily Record
2 Feb 2015 Kelly Apter Ballet review: Romeo and Juliet, Stirling The Scotsman

Stirling Stuff

Ballet West will dance Romeo and Juliet at the Macrobert Centre in Stirling tonight and tomorrow and with any luck  I will be in the audience tomorrow night to cheer them.  I enjoyed their Swan Lake and  The Nutcracker very much and I have high hopes of this production.

The company has already performed at The Corran Halls in Oban and by all accounts they did very well. The following message appeared on their Facebook page:

"Congratulations to the entire cast of Romeo & Juliet!! Each and every one of you were outstanding! A special well done to the outreach students, you were brilliant! Thank you also to the artistic and admin staff, chaperones, technical crew and wardrobe! Hope you're all ready for tonight's performance!!"

These shows are the only time I get to see Jonathan and Sara-Maria Barton who are accomplished performers as well as teachers at the school. I was very impressed with both of them in Odette's seduction scene last year.

Stirling is in one of our finest cities. Although it has fewer than 50,000 inhabitants it has the feel of a metropolis. It was for a time the capital of Scotland. Like Edinburgh it has an ancient castle built on a volcanic mound and the splendid Church of the Holy Rude where King James VI of Scotland and I of England was crowned. For the last 50 years Stirling has been a university town with a fine research university with the science park and Macrobert Centre.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is discouraging with high winds and driving snow threatened for both sides of the border but Ballet West, like a Michelin restaurant vaut le voyage.