As seasonal as Christmas pudding, turkey, stuffing and sprouts, Nutcrackers get family audiences out for their postprandial annual treat, tonight filling the five-thousand-plus-seater Royal Albert Hall. And they are loving it… I hear a lot of Russian voices in the audience, celebrating one of their own, though neither Tchaikovsky nor Petipa had an easy time of it in St Petersburg in 1892.
My problem is I’ve seen too many. I don’t want to dampen the spirit of goodwill, but tonight the energy just is not there: many stumbles on the stage and the Royal Ballet Sinfonia orchestra, up above the action, under the baton of Paul Murphy, is soporific. The problem with the latter is that the conductor has his back to the stage. Mind you, they are doing two shows a day.
Victorian setting naturally—we are in Prince Albert’s Hall after all. The female guests at the Stahlbaum’s Christmas Eve party in not very Christmassy, dark dresses (queen Victoria would approve I’m sure)—so as not to detract from Clara’s Mother in her vivid red dress I guess—could be at a wake. Fritz has little to do, but Clara is Beatrice Parma, a lovely dancer, and I wish she had more to do.
Drosselmeyer’s busy Assistant (Ryan Felix, also the Nutcracker Doll) is in white Marcel Marceau face paint. The automata, Harlequin (Riku Ito), Columbine (Rosanna Ely) and especially Jack-in-the-Box (Enrique Bejarano Vidal—also one of the Chinese pair), are fine. I love Jack-in-the-Box’s costume, very Triadisches Ballett. The Snow Fairy has four male icy Winds (in braided silver hair) to assist her Attendants and Snowflakes.
The national dances, Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russian, are as they always were and seem clichéd and outdated now. In their new version, English National Ballet has tried to adjust that for our present global situation. Peter Wright created his Nutcracker, or rather modified his 1984 Royal Ballet version for David Bintley’s 1990 production with additional choreography from Bintley and Mario Tait. I see a touch of Bintley’s sun king in the jack-in-the-box design.
The best is always the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Grand Pas, and tonight, Momoko Hirata and Mathias Dingman do not disappoint. But the fight between the Rat King’s army and the Soldiers (are they revisiting the Crimean War?) would not scare the horses.
I had hoped that there would be some changes to it—I last saw it in 2017—but no. We still have Simon Callow voicing Herr Doktor Drosselmeyer (Rory Mackay tonight) in a stagey German accent: “ze only vay is to fly”… Do we really need him? I’m sure most could follow what is going on without him. Clara flies on the arms of the Winds and Snowflakes, the automated goose is not ready yet, by the looks of it.
The magic of video projections by 59 Productions, Dick Bird’s (he also did the sets, costumes and concept for the recent new Nutcracker production from ENB) scenery, and John Macfarlane’s costumes and props bring forth gasps… and phone cameras… Giant baubles descend, snow falls, the clock melts (time melts) in a fission of electricity. It’s a veritable electrical storm. Peter Teigen lights up the vast hall with his dancing rays.
All this is wonderful—fascinating but distracting (one could easily forget to watch the dancers below) large videos of costume designs, the flying (mechanical) goose and Northern lights—but it makes the dancers look small. Some dancers seem lost. There are trees, a mirrored wall, elegant furniture, a brazier to warm the poor men outside Drosselmeyer’s toyshop, but the space must be daunting and disorientating. Some entrances and exits are fluffed.
Two hours and ten minutes with interval is not too taxing for the little ones—the evening performance finishes just after nine, so not too late to bed. BRB is here for three days, six performances in all. Tonight’s is dedicated to Caroline Miler, BRB’s chief executive who died 15 December. Her energy and enthusiasm are sorely missed by the company.
Reviewer: Vera Liber