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Samara Downs as The Snow Fairy surrounded by Snowflakes. Pictures: Bill Cooper The Nutcracker
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Birmingham Hippodrome
***** TWENTY-five years ago Sir Peter Wright,
the artistic director of the newly arrived Birmingham Royal Ballet,
created this spellbinding production as his and BRB’s gift to the city
they now called home. And it is a gift that carries on giving, with a
ballet that is as magical, magnificent and enchanting as it was at
Christmas 1990 when, incidentally, Marion Tait, played the ballet
student Clara. Tait, now assistant director, provides her own p Christmas might start just after August Bank
holiday in some shops but in Birmingham the festive season is launched
with the opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous, symphonic score. The hallmark of Wright’s Nutcracker is its sheer elegance and scale, every scene, every dance is a thing of beauty in John Macfarlane’s sumptuous setting from richly decorated drawing room to snowy forest.
BRB have created two of the most spectacular
scenes in world ballet, the swans rising out of the mist in
Wright’s Swan Lake and the magical Christmas tree transformation in The
Nutcracker. This takes us from the Christmas party at Dr
Stahlbaum’s house to a dream sequence as Clara finds herself in a battle
between King Rat (Yasuo Atsuji) and his followers and The Nutcracker. Karla Doorbar dances the role of Clara quite
beautifully with an air of playful innocence while Jonathan Caguioa is
her dashing, athletic Nutcracker soldier – although to be honest he was
none too impressive with the soldiery bit and was being well and truly
stuffed by the old rats until Clara saved the day by taking out the King
with a whack around the head with her shoe – those pointes are harder
than they look. Jonathan Payn took on the role of Drosselmeyer
the flamboyant magician with a cape the size of Dudley who we first see
at the party, with his assistant danced by James Ba The company create a real party atmosphere with
some delightful dancing from Clara and William Bracewell as part of the
party which also included some charming dancing from junior associates
of Elmhurst School for Dance – some real concentration going on there –
and a nicely controlled badly behaved Fritz, a real menace of a younger
brother to Clara danced by youngster Max Blackwell.
Clara’s dream first takes us to the forest where
we meet The Snow Fairy, beautifully danced by Samara Downs amid a
veritable blizzard falling on her attendants, the winds and snowflakes
from the company. The second act then takes us, and Clara, by flying, flapping-winged swan – which got its own round of applause incidentally - to a magical land where Drosselmeyer introduces dances from around the world with Angela Paul leading a Spanish dance and Delia Mathews providing a sensuous addition to the Arabian dance. Her lines and the graceful shapes she
creates are a delight and let’s be honest, probably way beyond most of
the audience – some of us creak just standing up. Jonathan Caguia and Lewis Turner are an amusing,
busy Chinese couple while James Barton, Alexander Bird and Max Maslen
are a colourful collection of lively Cosacks. Céline Gittins leads the Waltz of the Flowers as
The Rose Fairy which brings us to the brightest stars of this glittering
firmament, BRB’s very own MoJo, Momoko Hirata as the Sugar Plum Fairy
and Joseph Caley as her Prince. Theirs is a growing stage partnership which
crackles with life and chemistry with the eternally youthful looking
Caley moving with all the time in the world with consummate ease and the
quick footed Momoko precise, delicate and delightful in everything shoe
does. Seeing their names together on the batting order
lifts any production. The whole thing is a piece of Christmas magic all beautifully lit by David A Finn and, as always, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under music director Koen Kessels, seen only by an ethereal glow from the depths of the pit, bring the ballet's glorious score to wonderful life. If you want to introduce children, or
indeed anyone to ballet then this is perhaps an ideal starter – the
herald of Christmas past, present and hopefully, future for many years
to come. To 13-12-15. Roger Clarke
27-11-15 Another point of view - second review
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ersonal
link to that first performance appearing a quarter century later as
Clara’s grandmother.
rton
and his troupe of Harlequin and Columbine danced by Kit Holder and
Angela Paul and Tzu-Chao Chou’s springy legged Jack-in-a-box.