The Nutcracker #3 - The Royal Ballet Screening

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The Royal Ballet The Nutcracker 17 Dec 2019 19:39 Screened to cinemas worldwide

Yesterday I discussed the screening of the Bolshoi's version of The Nutcracker on 15 Dec 2019 in The Nutcracker #2 - The Bolshoi Screening.  Two days later the Bolshoi's screening, the Royal Opera House screened a recording of the Royal Ballet's version of The Nutcracker.  For the reasons that I explained yesterday the twp productions are very different.  The Bolshoi's records Marie's transition into womanhood while the Royal Ballet's is a fantasy with more than a little in common with Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Lookingglass.  

The Royal Ballet's production was created by Sir Peter Wright who took a bow at the end of the show.  The recording was made in 2016 which coincided with Sir Peter's 90th birthday.  In Sir Peter's version, the nutcracker is  Drosselmeyer's nephew who is imprisoned in wood.  He can come back to life only through the love of a young woman.  This is an adaptation of ETA Hoffmann's story of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and it is a detail that most versions of the ballet overlook.  This makes Drosselmeyer a much less sinister and more likeable character than in the Bolshoi's or most other versions of the ballet.  Sir Peter's ballet opens in Drosselmeyer's workshop as he wraps up his present for Clara.  The workshop is also where the show ends as the nephew - restored to human form -  embraces his uncle.

Sir Peter's ballet requires two ballerinas, namely the young girl known as Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy, and two premiers danseurs nobles, that is to say, the nutcracker and the Sugar Plum Fairy's prince or cavalier.  There are also meaty roles for the mouse king, Harlequin and Columbine in the first act and the soloists in each of the divertissements of the second.  The climax of the production is the pas de deux of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her beau.  Probably, the most famous dance of the whole ballet is the Sugar Plum Fairy's solo to the slightly otherworldly sounds of the celesta.

In the recording, Drosselmeyer was danced by the company's principal character artist, Gary Avis whom I once had the pleasure of meeting at the London Ballet Circle's 70th-anniversary celebrations.  I can report that he is as gracious in real life as he is graceful on stage.  Clara was danced by Francesca Hayward who was perfect in the role.  Her nutcracker was Alexander Campbell who, like Xander Parish, shares my passion for cricket as well as dance. The Sugar Plum Fairy was danced by Lauren Cuthbertson, my dancer of the year in 2016. and she was partnered by Federico Bonelli, another favourite.  With an orchestra was conducted by Maestro Gruzin it is hard to think of a  stronger cast by any company anywhere in the world.  The sets, costumes and technical effects match the choreography and dancing.  It is a sumptuous production.

On Sunday I shall see Sir Peter Wright's production for the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall.  That will be the last Nutcracker that I shall see this season and indeed the last ballet of this year.  The version that is staged at the Hippodrome is my favourite version of The Nutcracker. If the Hippodrome version can be scaled up for the Royal Albert's stage I suspect Birmingham Royal Ballet's will be my favourite Nutcracker for this year.

The Nutcracker #2 - The Bolshoi Screening

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Bolshoi Ballet The Nutcracker Screened in cinemas worldwide, 15 Dec 2019, 14:00

In Coppelia in the Cinema 12 Dec 2019, I wrote that the conversation between Merle Park, Darcey Bussell and Marianela Nuñez was the high point of the screening of Coppelia.   Pathé Live went one better with an interview with Ludmila Semenyaka that consumed virtually the whole interval.  As her interviewer, Ekaterina Novikova remarked, Semenyaka was one of the greats of Soviet ballet. She danced all the leading roles including the lead in The Nutcracker.  There are some ballerinas like Antoinette Sibley who could tell a story or transmit emotion with their eyes.  I suspect that Semenyaka must have been able to do that too,  Though now is in her late 60s her eyes remain as expressive as they must have been at the height of her career.  The interview was conducted at a high level because Ms Novikova is exceedingly well informed about ballet.

I arrived at the screening shortly before the curtain rose but I caught the last part of Ms Novikova's introduction to the ballet.  She explained why the Bolshoi's version of The Nutcracker is so different from those in the West.  In the former, Clara (or Marie as she is called there) and the sugar plum are one and the same person which turns The Nutcracker into a journey to adulthood instead of a succession of divertissements as happens here. A few days after the screening I listened to a podcast by Tom Service called The Nutcracker - Strange Enchantments that argued that there was a dark side to the ballet and that the transition from the Stahlbaums' sitting room to the kingdom of the sweets might actually be an entry into paradise.  Mr Service reminded his listeners that infantile mortality was much more common at the end of the 19th century than it is now and that the final pas de deux was performed by the Mariinsky Orchestra at a concert to commemorate the children who were killed in the siege of Beslan.

If one views The Nutcracker through too dark a lens it can look very sinister indeed.  A world of monster mice and outsize Christmas trees can be seen as symptoms of delirium or worse and Drosselmeyer appears more as a child molester and less as a kindly uncle with a line of conjuring tricks. Mr Service even interpreted the Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dances as a defence of imperialism even though the Russia of Tchaikovsky and Petipa possessed no territories in lands that produced chocolate, coffee or tea. 

The version that Pathé Live screened on 15 Dec does not stray too far from ETA Hoffmann's story. Marie may have lost her innocence but she still wakes up in her own home. Semenyaka explained in the interview that there is a tension between Hoffmann's story and Tchaikovsky's score and where he had to choose between the tale and music the choreographer, Yuri Grigorovich chose the music. She added that was why she preferred Grigorovich's version to all others even though she could see merit in other companies' productions.

In the screening of 15 Dec 2019, the title role was performed by Margarita Shrayner, a first soloist in the company who danced more confidently than many principals. She can act as well as dance and has an impressive repertoire.  The male lead was Semyon Chudin who is now a principal with the Bolshoi. Interestingly, he trained not in the Bolshoi's own school but in Novosibirsk and joined the company from the Universal Ballet Company of South Korea.  Drosselmeyer was danced by Denis Savin who was suitably creepy.  Compared to the Royal Ballet's production (a recording of which was screened a few days later) the Bolshoi's sets and costumes seemed a bit dowdy. There was, however, nothing wrong with the dancing or acting which are the most important components of any ballet. There were a couple of nice touches which other companies might consider.  For instance, the Russian dance is performed by a couple rather than a bevvy of boys dressed as Cossacks and Bo Peep and her sheep (on casters) were substituted for "mirlitons" whatever they may be. 

Altogether I enjoyed the screening very much.  I can't wait to see the company in its own theatre which is my Christmas present to myself for the New Year.  As I see that I have finished my review on Christmas morning, I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year,

An American View of the London Nutcrackers

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I have not been to any of the productions of The Nutcracker that I previewed in The Good Nutcracker Guide 31 Oct 2016 other than the live screening on 8 Dec 2016 (see The Royal Ballet's Nutcracker in the Merrie City 14 Dec 2016) but Roslyn Sulcas of the New York Times has and she does not seem to have been too impressed (see Roslyn Sulcas London Nutcrackers Defy Logic, and Still Delight 28 Dec 2016 NY Times).

She begins her article with the observation:

"LONDON — It hasn’t always been an inevitable truth here that 'The Nutcracker' plays during the holiday season. But things seem to be changing, perhaps influenced by the belt-tightening in British arts funding and the moneymaking powers of this ballet: For the past few years, the English National Ballet and the Royal Ballet have both had long December-into-January runs of 'The Nutcracker.'”

After summarizing the traditional scenario derived from Hoffmann's tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouseking she discusses the way the story has been adapted by different choreographers in the past. She observes:

"The English National Ballet and Royal Ballet versions are no exception to the choreographic desire to mess about, even if they do keep the period setting of a prosperous 19th-century German household and the basic structure of the plot."

She is particularly critical of Sir Peter Wright's version which is said to reconstruct parts of Petipa's scenario and Ivanov's choreography:

"But Petipa certainly never imagined an incomprehensible back-story for the ballet that involves Drosselmeyer’s nephew, Hans-Peter, being turned into the Nutcracker doll by a wicked Mouse Queen as punishment for his uncle’s invention of a mousetrap that has killed off half the rodent population. (Yes, read that again. I always have to.)"

Unless you have read this is the £7 programme (it is a long time since I last visited the USA so things may have changed but on all previous visits to the theatre in that country programmes were included in the ticket price), Ms Sulcas points out, you are unlikely to understand

"why Drosselmeyer is gazing longingly at a portrait of a young man in his study, or whether the perky ginger-haired assistant has anything to do with this (she does not), or that Drosselmeyer gives the Nutcracker doll to Clara in order to free his nephew from his wooden imprisonment. What’s more, the breaking of the spell needs the love of a young girl as well as the Mouse King’s defeat. Why the king, then, if the queen had cast the spell?"

Now that the critic mentions it, I did wonder whar was going on when I saw the opening and closing scenes of the ballet in the cinema.  She concludes:

"Drosselmeyer’s reunion with his nephew ends the ballet; we haven’t lived through a child’s magical dream, but an adult soap opera."

She concedes that she may be griping - and if and to the extent that she is I have every sympathy because I don't like change for change's sake either. However, I don't think Sir Peter Wright is the worst culprit by a long chalk. I have seen far worse, believe me.  Ms Sulcas notes with a hint of exasperation that "London audiences and the British dance critics love Mr. Wright’s (sic) version."  Maybe it is a case of faute de mieux.  I should love to know what she makes of shillelagh-wielding wilis or bikes in Swan Lake.

Ms Sulcas is a little kinder to Wayne Eagling's version for English National Ballet. She says that "under Ms. Rojo, the English National Ballet seems to be improving from production to production". But not even that production escapes criticism:

"The Mouse King (a valiant James Streeter on Thursday) just can’t be killed, which rather obviates the reward trip to the land of sweets, and he doesn’t stop popping up in Act 2 until he is — with a strange lack of theatricality — put to rest offstage."

Ooh! That irritates me too.  The Bolshoi is just as bad in that regard by the way (see  Clara grows up- Grigorovich's Nutcracker transmitted directly from Moscow 21 Dec 2014). Ms Sulcas does not seem to like Clara's morphing into the Sugar Plum:

"And then there is the fact that Clara is a child in Act 1, but changes into an adult dancer (the wonderful Alina Cojocaru) halfway through; and Drosselmeyer’s nephew (Cesar Corrales, a new star) and the Nutcracker (James Forbat) incomprehensibly keep switching places as they partner her."

That's another thing that the Bolshoi does and I don't like it either.

Next Christmas it may be worth Ms Sulcas's while taking a trip to Edinburgh to see Scottish Ballet perform Peter Darrell's version of The Nutcracker for that's a real treat (see Like meeting an old friend after so many years 4 Jan 2015).