By: Cameron Tyo
December, 25th, 2024
The conductor appears before your very eyes and, with the orchestra’s help, creates an interlude with Christmasy chords from festive holiday strings being strummed in very melodic ways, making its way for the opening of the curtain revealing a grand hall where the Stahlbaulm family is making final preparations to the tree and pleasantries for the party in which most of the first half of the ballet is set. This whole opening does a marvelous job getting you attuned to the work of Tchaikovsky and grips you into the magical world of The Nutcracker.
The Nutcracker Ballet is based on the book The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A Hoffman in 1816 and its Alexandre Dumes adaptation. There are different takes on the story, depending on the version of the ballet that is being performed. The ballet’s first performance was in 1892 in Saints Petersburg and has been running every holiday season since then. Two of the most famous versions of the ballet are Balanchine, whose version is usually performed in the U.S., and Peter Wright, the latter being performed most of the time in Europe. I haven’t watched any other version of The Nutcracker besides these two, but I have recently watched the Australian Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker, filmed in 2014 and released in 2015, which is the Peter Wright version of the ballet. I wanna say right out the back that the scenery of this particular production of the ballet is so detailed. For the party scene, you have a massive yet beautifully decorated tree to the left of the stage. Behind that, a winding staircase. On the right, you have many paintings adorned on a red wall next to some chairs, a fireplace with greenery hanging down and above, and a clock on top of that. In the middle of the stage, you have a big window and a candle stick beside it. As the children and adults dance and Drosselmeyer shows off his magical abilities, you feel the sense of grandiosity that the scenery is letting on. The scenes always show the grandiosity and scale of the scenes from the battle between the Nutcracker soldiers and rats, the snow forest, and the land of sweets.
The Nutcracker is a ballet, so it would be absurd not to talk about the dancing in the ballet. I thought that the party scene was really good. You had the dances from Clara, her partner, and the rest of the teens for “March.” As the first dance of the ballet, it does a great job of showing the whimsicalness of the ballet. The partner dancing is fluid and synchronous, and the leaps and landing of jumps happen and go as quickly as they should. The choreography of the party scene as a whole makes it seem that the party is lively, which it needs to be. The choreography from the Columbine, Harlequin, and Jack-in-the-box shows the greatness of the dancers in the ballet company, really emoting as the toys they are playing as through their mechanical dance choreography, etc.
This choreo continues to be great throughout the rest of the ballet. I thought Clara, played by principal artist Benedicte Bemet, did a great job portraying a curious 15-year-old who drifted to a magical world through her dance sequences. Her party dances and her partner’s dance with the Nutcracker Prince in “The Forest of Fir Trees in Winter-Journey Through the Snow” is breathtaking to look at and tell such a beautiful story. I love how she is more involved in the “Waltz of the Snowflakes” in some regard and the other dances that are performed for her in Act 2 to celebrate her for her bravery. Being an older version of Clara than the Balanchine version of The Nutcracker, it makes sense that one would want to get involved in the action.
I also liked the choreography for the fight against the toy soldiers and rats, which led to the snowflake waltz, which always gives me chills in a good way. The whole stage is utilized during the dance as many ballet corp members take the stage, showing the true dream-like nature of Clara’s dream.
Act 2 is definitely the most dance-heavy, featuring different dances from different cultures whose costumes reflect that of food or other objects from their culture. The Spanish dancers had a quick-paced salsa dance, the Arabian dance reflected the sensual nature of India, and the classical and folk umbrella dance was performed by tea to represent Chinese culture. The structure is very similar to the Balanchine version of the ballet. You have these sweets performed for Clara per Drosselmeyer’s request. You then had a usual Russian “Trepak,” “The Dance of the Reed Flutes,” and the “Waltz of the Flowers,” all of which Clara gets her time to shine her final ballet choreo in the story. The story ends with the classic Pas de Deux from The Sugar Plum Fairy, played by Madeline Eastoe and by the Prince portrayed by Kevin Jackson, who, in this version, is the same one who transformed out of the Nutcracker. I thought the chemistry between the two was good, considering this is the first time the Sugar Plum fairy shows up in this version as a transformed version of what Clara wants to be when she is older. The twirls and the falls are amazing, and the ” Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” had the title character executing amazing points and touches in tight seconds from each other.
The Pas de Deux is followed by a great finale for a festive show. All of the dancers in Act 2 did a great job at portraying the magnificence and energy of each group of sweets and their cultures. One thing I found unique about the show was principal artist Andrew Killian played Drosselymeyer, who is usually played by a guest artist; for this reason, dancing for the role was more prominent, but I really liked how he twirled and leaped before conjuring up his many spells, which caused things to happen very much important to said story.
Everything from John F Macfarlane’s scenic design, Tchaikovsky’s orchestra soundtrack, the conducting choice of Nioclete Frallo, Wright’s choreography, and the dancing of all the cast, especially the principals, all combined together to create a fascinating, wonder-filled, and fun journey through the eyes of Clara and her journey to a dreamland filled with magic. Creating a dance performance worthy of watching around the holidays. Really, any time.
This was actually, in fact, one of my favorite renditions of The Nutcracker I’ve seen despite the film quality being iffy at times. I haven’t seen many renditions, so this could easily change a bit. I’m excited to see other versions as the year progresses and see a production in person. If you haven’t yet done so, I encourage you to watch the Australian Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker.
With this, I give the 2015 released production of the Australian Ballet’s The Nutcracker an 8.9/10 (Great)