At the head of the Nutcracker parade
LES GRANDS BALLETS CANADIENS’ long-running production remains a benchmark for the Christmas classic
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all accounts, Montreal’s municipal government should accept reality and officially declare December to be Nutcracker month. The initial volley of Nutcracker rats and mice started to battle the toy soldiers during the first weekend of December in Ballet Ouest’s perennially enjoyable version of this Tchaikovsky ballet. To close the month, the Segal Centre will present Nutcracker Suite, a new version of the tale by Ballet Eddie Toussaint in which Clara is whisked to another planet, presumably one where the aliens dance in toe shoes.
After landmark performances at the new Royal Opera House in the desert country of Oman last month, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens are back at wintry Place des Arts for an annual three-week run of Fernand Nault’s delightful Nutcracker. The company proudly likes to share some statistics for this venerable production, which it describes as “the longest-running show presented in the same venue in all of Canada!” The exclamation mark seems merited for a show that the company estimates has been seen by more than two million spectators since it was first staged in 1964. That’s barely a year after Place des Arts opened, which makes Nault’s Nutcracker older than the Montreal métro.
In sheer numbers, the Nutcracker is also Les Grands’ biggest production by far, with 165 dancers needed in all to portray those battalions of rodents and soldiers, as well as the party guests and exotic Act Two performers who entertain Clara in the Kingdom of the Sweets.
The latest production has 115 children ages 6 to 16 who passed an open audition in September. Rehearsals followed once a week, then increased to two and three times a week as December loomed. Among the youngsters are some “veterans” including three former Claras: Mariya Kyrychenko, a “Matryoshka” this year, is in her sixth production; Camille Bergeron, a child “party guest,” is in her fifth; and Juliette Boucher, a “black sheep,” is in her third.
Another third-year veter- an is a 14-year-old American, Madison Cleveland, who with her mother, Heather, crosses the border from Plattsburgh, N.Y., to travel to rehearsals and performances.
In the past two years, Madison was one of the “angels” in golden costumes who opened Act Two in a flurry of flickering hands. Something about this role must be connected to commuting. One of the angels this year is Tiffany Reinhold, a youngster who makes the trek to Montreal from Cornwall, Ont., with her parents.
Madison, meanwhile, has graduated to a role as one of four maidens who gracefully lift and lower the billowing diaphanous cloth on the female soloist in the Oriental number, a series of gently seductive poses set to one of Tchaikovsky’s most sensuous melodies.
A student at Plattsburgh’s Adirondack Dance Academy, Madison began dancing at 3 and was 12 when she first came to Les Grands’ Nutcracker auditions.
“I was excited and I was also very nervous,” she said last week just before a dress rehearsal at Les Grands’ studios. “I told myself even if I didn’t get in, it was a good experience to audition. I could always come back next year.”
Quite a mature outlook for someone only 12.
As it was, she did well at that initial audition conducted by Les Grands’ skilful ballet master, Pierre Lapointe, who showed the children some Nutcracker choreography and observed them perform it twice. When Madison was accepted, she fulfilled a prom- ise that she’d made to herself three years earlier.
“I’d taken her to see Swan Lake at Place des Arts,” Heather related. “At the end, we went down from the balcony to the stage. She looked at the stage and at the empty theatre, turned around and said, ‘Mama, I’m going to dance on this stage.’ ”
Madison admitted that she would dance on stage “all the time” if only given the chance.
If she had any role in the Nutcracker to perform, it would be the Sugar Plum Fairy, who dances the big duet at the end.
The commuting to Montreal is trying, all the more so since Madison juggles Montreal’s Nutcracker with a role in a local Plattsburgh Nutcracker production, as well. She still manages to get high grades at school where the teachers, her mother said, are quite accommodating. One time-saving technique that Madison has learned is to do her homework in the car.
Among her school subjects is French, but, she said, “I’m not very good at it.” Montreal Nutcracker rehearsals are entirely in French, so Madison relies on the “super nice” friends that she made among the child performers to translate whenever she doesn’t quite understand.
“We’ve made really good friends here, both of us,” Heather said. “It’s a nice opportunity for Madison to be exposed to professional dancers and to talk with some of them backstage. That’s just an opportunity she wouldn’t have where we live.”
Madison hopes to dance professionally one day, but wants to go to college first and earn a degree. After a career in dance, she has another role in mind — veterinarian.