| |
Theatre listings >
The Nutcracker
- Tour & World Premiere.
A new ballet based on ETA Hoffman's Nutcracker and the King of Mice incorporating
original choreography by Lev Ivanov.
Choreographer - Ashley Page - The Artistic Director of Scottish
Ballet.
Composer - Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky.
Designer - Antony McDonald.
Lighting Designer - Peter Munford.
Assistant Set Designer - Juliette Blondelle.
Assistant Costume Designer -Michelle May.
Musical Director & Conductor - Alan Barker.
Company - Scottish Ballet Company.Website.
Dancers - here .
2004 Dates and Times - here
.
Seen to review at Edinburgh Festival Theatre on 17 December 2003.
Run Time - 2 hours including one Interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good .
Marvellous Christmas present, reinvigorated Scottish Ballet.
The Nutcracker - Scottish Ballet Production
© Bill Cooper 2003
|
Bringing a new look and nearly all new choreography to an old much loved
story and music, this is a marvellous and special Christmas present from
Ashley Page and the reinvigorated Scottish Ballet. He's looked again at
Hoffman's dark story, bringing a much cleaner and more satisfying bite
than Ivanov's century old standard. His dancers move to Tchaikovsky's
marvellous music, conducted finely by Alan Barker, with much more meaning,
really making it a young girl's journey through her subconscious dreams.
Page takes classical dance elements with much pointe work and more contemporary
movements to produce a richness of imagery and of story telling. He's
even found a way to link the divertissements of the second act to the
story, inspiring the girl's unconcious experiences by the postcards displayed
on the mantelpiece mirror in her parent's house.
It opens with a visual clue to what follows, on a front cloth a outsized
girl, her eyes amazed as she looks at a book, is painted sideways. Her
skull is a cracked walnut, and inside her brain a figure can be seen scapel
in hand cutting into a skull. Then the front cloth rises and a beautiful
Art Deco whitewashed house fills the stage, with a hint of MacIntosh but
based on the artist Max Beckmann's house in Berlin.
The Nutcracker - Scottish Ballet Production
© Bill Cooper 2003
|
This is where Marie lives and as the Christmas tree is dragged in through
its front door it's clear we are in for treats, the first being the way
the house open like a dolls house to reveal the family Stahlbaum just
before their guests arrive. Designer Antony McDonald has created wonderful
effects in his sets as we gradually move from the Christmas Eve celebrations
into the feverish mind of Marie as her present the Nutcracker comes to
life after the party is over. Set in the 1920s Weimar Republic the fashionable
dresses and maids with saucy bowed and exposed frilly knickers revealed
when they turn away from us show we are in for increasing visual delights.
Page's choreography is firmly based in the moods and themes of Tchaikovsky's
music, would that he could see this tasty and superb offering, he wasn't
pleased with Dumas' insipid sencario that Ivanov staged. This Nutcracker
is a cracker with much to entrance not only people familiar with the ballet
world, but to attract and nourish new audiences young and old. It makes
Matthew Bourne's acclaimed Nutcracker look stuck too strongly to the oddities
of sickly Nutcrackers of the past.
Scottish Ballet company and their main sponsor, the Bank of Scotland,
are to be congratulated on this big, fizzling with creativity and talent
production which showcases the new ensemble. Their dancing was almost
perfect on its opening night, including only the remaining piece of Ivanov's
ballet, the exquisite Grand Pas imacculately danced by Mara Galeazzi and
Jose Perez - even Page says he can't imagine a better way to dance that
section. At the end the audience responded with rapture at the ballet
and at a company who have realised our interest is increased by a creative
fusion of past, present and future.
There are other national companies in Scotland who need to find ways to
inject life and vigour into their ossified nuts. Let's hope their boards,
sponsors and supporters will crack their mummified forms to emerge sharply
focused and alive - Scottish Opera and RSNO, are you listening?
© Thelma Good 17 December 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Other EdinburghGuide reviews of Scottish Ballet
Autumn 2003 tour | Spring
2004 tour | Autumn
2004 Tour | 2004
-5 Tour of The Nutcracker - Ashley Page's version |
Dancers when seen on 17 December 2003.
Act One
Herr Drosselmeyer - Jarkko Lehmus
Dr Stahlbaum / Mouse King - Robert Doherty
Frau Stahlbaum - Eve Mutso
Their children:
Marie - Mara Galeazzi
Fritz - Lilian Pommier
Louise - Martina Forioso
Grandfather Stahlbaum / The General - Jocelyn Giles
Guests - Emma Sandall Victoria Willard
Nicholas Cleverton Mark Kimmett
The Governess / Dame Mouserink - Diana Loosmore
Drosselmeyer's nephew, Hans Peter / Nutcracker - Glauco Di Lieto
The Nutcracker Prince - Jose Perez
Maids, Mice, Soldiers, Hussars - Artists of Scottish Ballet
Bad Snowflakes - Diana Loosmore Patricia Hines
Snowflakes - Artists of Scottish Ballet
Act Two
Princess Pirlipat - Emma Brunton
Divertissement in Act 2:
Spanish - Martina Forioso and Lilian Pommier.
Arabian - Eve Mutso Jarkko Lehmus Nicholas Cleverton and Mark Kimmett.
Russian - Robert Doherty Emma Sandall and Victoria Willard.
Chinese - Jocelyn Giles, Campbell Watt, Luke Ahmet and Andrew Ross.
French - Diana Loosmore, Luciana Ravizzi, Kara McLaughlin, Lorna Beattie,
and Vassilissa Levtonova.
Waltz of the Flowers - Soon Ja Lee, Lorna Scott, Erik Cavallari, Claire
Robertson, Cristo Vivancos, Joanne Bungay ,Anne Dancer, Catarina Lappin
and Louisa Hassell.
Grand Pas - Mara Galeazzi and Jose Perez.
Tour Details of 2004 - 5 Scottish production of The Nutcracker
at Glasgow Theatre Royal 0141 332 9000.
11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 30 December 2004 at 7:15pm.
31 Dec 2004 at 1:00pm And matinees on 21 Dec at 1:30pm & 11, 18, 23,
24, 30 Dec2004 at 2:15pm.
Theatre listings >>
|
|
