It wouldn’t be Christmas without The Nutcracker!
Birmingham Royal Ballet have pulled out all the stops to bring an annual festive favourite back to the Hippodrome. finds out how they did it
AUDIENCES young and old will have an early Christmas present this year with a new adaptation of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s popular The Nutcracker.
Sir Peter Wright’s Nutcracker sets, created in 1990, are undergoing a major renovation and will return, refreshed and revitalised, to Birmingham Hippodrome’s stage in November 2022.
But the company was determined to ensure Birmingham audiences could still enjoy their festive favourite this year. So they are presenting a special adaptation of their successful Royal Albert Hall production.
Internationally renowned designer Dick Bird created the London adaptation, which premiered in 2017, and is making another set of changes for Birmingham.
“The usual Nutcracker at the Hippodrome, the John Macfarlane and Sir Peter Wright production, is about the most beautiful Nutcracker I have ever seen,” he says.
“The sense of magic and beauty and transformation for a proscenium stage where the audience sits at one end and looks through a picture frame into another world is just exquisite.
“Our challenge for the Royal Albert Hall was to make this beautiful, magical, delicate ballet work in that extraordinary bowl space while trying to remain faithful to the sense of wonder.”
He adds: “For me, the m o s t beautiful element of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s original is the way the audience is brought into Clara’s experience of everything changing at midnight, when she suddenly finds herself the same size as the mice and rats, and all these toys she has been playing with are suddenly people she is dancing with.
“The beauty of John Macfarlane’s design is that the tree kind of grows and comes in from all aspects of the stage from above and below so you suddenly see Clara in among the branches and you really feel her experience emotionally. The challenge we set ourselves was to try and be true to that feeling but in another venue.”
The Royal Albert Hall production featured a host of new elements including giant baubles hanging above the heads of the audience, a wall of mirrors reflecting back onto the stage and some amazing digital images.
“It was a massive challenge to adapt The Nutcracker for the Albert Hall but I’m amazed at how well it worked. It was a different experience but a very participative experience.”
With the Hippodrome and the Royal Albert Hall being such different spaces, the team have adapted the show again for Birmingham.
Says Dick: “We have again gone back to the fundamentals and asked what is it about John Macfarlane’s set that we love, and again it’s that sense of engagement for the audience.
‘‘So our first principle was to try and bring this spectacle beyond the proscenium and into the auditorium.
“Like at the Albert Hall (where there is no orchestra pit) our platform with the orchestra is on top so it is beautiful seeing the orchestra. We also have our mirrors and we have built more scenery so there are further reflections going down the stage.
“And then with the projections, our aim was to reach out into the auditorium so that once again that sense of the magic of being under the Christmas tree is produced around the audience as well as in front of them.”
The production begins with the voice of actor Simon Callow setting the scene before the audience is taken into Drosselmeyer’s toy shop and the Stahlbaums’ Christmas Eve. This transforms into a magical midnight world in which King Rat battles the Nutcracker doll and Clara is carried away to a winter wonderland peopled with a host of
colourful characters including the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince.
Dick, who has worked for companies across the globe including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, The National Ballet of Japan and Comédie Francaise, is keen not to reveal all but says audiences will be in for a treat.
“There will be some lovely surprises for people and some moments where we can be really spectacular but in a slightly different way from the original.
“I would love Birmingham audiences this year to say they’ve seen it differently. Maybe the choreography is more apparent because it’s in a more open setting or maybe the understanding of Clara’s experience is different for us because we’ve felt it a bit more from inside.
“I really hope audiences will love it – and that it will also encourage them to go back and see the original one when it returns. They can compare the two and their experiences of the two.”
The Nutcracker is at Birmingham Hippodrome from November 20 to December 11.