.Friday, November 16, 2007 ' 3:19 AM Y
estaandamelia
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
