Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker
Scottish Ballet
Scottish Ballet Orchestra
Richard Honner
One last festive twinkle before we all settle down to 2015, being ushered in, regrettably, with howling gales. Scottish Ballet's new production of The Nutcracker is a handsome affair indeed, lavishly dressed and set, rich with colour and sparkle. Yet it's not, strictly speaking, a wholly new production, as the company's Artistic Director made the decision to revive Peter Darrell's 1973 version of the ballet. It's certainly more child-friendly than the Ashley Page production the company was previously using, especially as the children, and Clara in particular, are indeed children, rather than young adolescents.
It's a refreshing take on the subject; however, the children tonight (the girls in particular) seemed to be just at that stage in their training where every position and pose is adopted with extreme care and calculation, and as a result looks horribly unnatural! Young Amy Pollock, in particular, needs to watch her grown-up partners a little more closely to see how to hold her arms by her sides easily - she kept them stiffly a couple of inches away from her dress, hands turned outwards at 90º. The minute she got her hands on a prop, she relaxed into a much more natural stance. She was hardly the only one, but as she was playing Clara, and is on stage virtually non-stop from start to finish, she was the most obvious.
I don't honestly remember the original production much, though I certainly saw it, and more than once, but it's probably been 30 years since I last saw any of Darrell's choreography, let alone his Nutcracker. What I had forgotten, which came back to me watching this performance, was how lyrical his steps could be, and how attractive their flow. The very small numbers the company is able to field does leave them rather exposed; what had been a fine Waltz of the Flowers came unfortunately adrift in the very last measures, and there was no concealing it. The rest of the Divertissement, however, was very good, notably the ever-elegant Eve Mutso in a seductively aloof Arabian Dance.
Darrell's version gives his three principals (the Snow Queen, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince) rather more to do than they usually get, which is not unwelcome. All three appear as Drosselmeyer's entertainers in Act 1, and Luciana Ravizzi continued the impression of cool delicacy she gave there when she reappeared as the Snow Queen. Bethany Kingsley-Garner was a little side-lined at first, but began Act 2 in fine style, joyous and radiant. However, when it came to the great pas de deux (in its original choreography), it seemed to me that she was playing too much to the gallery, undermining any rapport with her partner. Despite honourable efforts from Erik Cavalleri as the Prince, the pas de deux seemed quite detached. While there's rarely any sort of plot point at this moment - and even less so when the Sugar Plum Fairy and Clara are two different dancers, never mind when Clara's a child - the wonderful music of the adagio demands some semblance of emotional harmony between the two protagonists, and that was quite lacking here, despite the full-blooded contribution of the Scottish Ballet Orchestra under Richard Honner.
A change of cast might easily correct these small shortcomings, and as I said at the start, it's a very good-looking production, Lez Brotherston's colourful designs inspired by the original Philip Prowse ones, without being slavish copies of something that would probably look a little dated now. The best production of Nutcracker, at least in this country, remains incontrovertibly that of Birmingham Royal Ballet, worth going out of your way for, quite literally. If you can't, however, this one is an agreeable enough alternative.
[Next : 16th February]
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