Our Nutcracker a hit in Finland and beyond
Five performances of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens’ version were staged over a recent weekend at Tampere Hall
Mário Radačovský, a former principal dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, is becoming something of a Nutcracker machine in Europe. At last count, he has introduced Les Grands’ version of The Nutcracker, created by the late Fernand Nault, to three European cities.
The latest city was Tampere, Finland, where five performances were staged over a November weekend in one of Scandinavia’s most prominent theatres, Tampere Hall, by the Ballet of the National Theatre Brno. Radačovský has been artistic director of the Brno troupe — the Czech Republic’s second-largest dance company — for the past three years.
“My first decision (as artistic director) was to change The Nutcracker — it set the page for me as artistic director,” Radačovský said by phone from Brno. “I hope that Mr. Nault is proud from up there and looking down with a smile.”
Radačovský is smiling, too. Nault’s Nutcracker has been a hit in Brno, the Czech Republic’s second-largest city, since he introduced it there in 2014.
Throughout December, the company is performing the holiday-time show at its Brno home, the stately 19th century Mahen Theatre. The show’s décor would bring instant smiles of recognition to Montrealers, and the costumes by veteran designer Ludmila Várossová are as colourful and detailed as those in Montreal.
Before Brno, Radačovský had success transplanting Nault’s Nutcracker to the Slovak National Ballet in Bratislava, where he was artistic director until being abruptly ousted in 2013 by a board of directors that was apparently hostile to his Western contemporary repertory.
While with Les Grands, Radačovský danced The Nutcracker’s big duets and other roles many times. Now he passes on his know-how to his 50-dancer troupe, including soloist Klaudia Radačovska, who dances the Snow Queen and Sugar Plum Fairy roles, and whom he married last year.
“I coach the parts I danced and worked with Mr. Nault personally,” he said. “I always pay attention to the dancers at rehearsals and attend the dress rehearsal. But I have a great team of ballet masters who know the details that André brought.”
That’s André Laprise, who once danced with Les Grands and served as an assistant to Nault. Since 2003, he has been the trustee and official rehearsal master of the Nault Choreographic Trust. Laprise helped stage all three of Radačovský’s European Nutcracker ventures.
“André was amazing in Finland,” Radačovský said. “If he wasn’t in Tampere, we wouldn’t have made it. He’s good with children — so much patience with them.”
Children are needed for the big party scene and the toy soldiers’ battle with the mice that make up much of the action in Act One. Laprise is an old pro at preparing children for Les Grands. He did the same in Tampere with about 60 local kids.
“Many Finnish teens speak English or understand it,” Laprise noted from Brno, where he was getting another young batch ready for The Nutcracker partying and battling. It was tougher to communicate
with the youngest kids. But after a few days, the kids got rid of their shyness and we had a good connection.”
Laprise has a game plan whenever he coaches in a foreign country, especially in places like Finland where the language sounds nothing like French or English.
“I always learn some basic words — hello, thank you, right, left, man, woman — as well as the alphabet and how letters are pronounced. That way, when I arrive, it’s less foreign. I also try to learn the first names of all the participants. So I knew all the kids’ names. That impressed them.”
In Montreal, Laprise can extend the kids’ rehearsals over a number of weeks, but in Tampere he arrived just 10 days before show time.
“I spent the same number of hours rehearsing but I had longer days — 10 hours a day with only a 15-minute pause — seven days a week.”
Opened in 1990, Tampere Hall is billed as Scandinavia’s largest convention and concert centre, quite an achievement for a city with a metropolitan population of just 364,000. Well-known European troupes regularly perform in the main theatre with its 1,600 seats and with a stage that is deeper than the one in Théâtre Maisonneuve of Place des Arts or in Brno.
Like Place des Arts, Tampere Hall recently underwent renovations aimed at attracting more visitors and boosting revenues.
“People from surrounding towns are used to going to Tampere to see shows,” Laprise said.
One spectator from Helsinki who attended Tampere’s Nutcracker première was Canada’s ambassador to Finland, Andrée Cooligan. Afterwards, said Laprise, she held a reception for the dancers and guests and expressed her pride in Nault and his ballet.
The Nutcracker attracts outof-towners to Brno, too, some of whom, said Radačovský, are willing to travel a few hours from neighbouring Austria or from Prague.
Three of those Prague residents with tickets this month include a certain Gazette dance writer’s son, André Swoboda, his wife, Jarka, and their four-year-old daughter, Sofie. Thanks to Radačovský, Sofie gets to enjoy the same version of The Nutcracker that her father saw many times as a child growing up in Montreal.
Sofie’s two-year-old sister, Zoe, will get her turn in a couple of years — four is a good age at which to start taking kids to light story ballets. After 50-odd years of Nutcracker productions in Montreal, it’s not unusual today to find children in the audience whose parents or grandparents saw the show when they were kids themselves.
Nault’s feel-good Nutcracker could prove a valuable calling card for the Brno Ballet. Radačovský expects to return to Tampere in 2018, either with The Nutcracker or Swan Lake, perhaps both. He would also like to arrange a week-long exchange of principal dancers with Les Grands during the Nutcracker’s run next year. Fernand Nault would smile at that.
Mary Poppins in its first French-language production is back after a sensational opening run this past summer.
The choreography by So You Think You Can Dance alumnus Steve Bolton zings merrily along, especially in the chimney sweep number. Sets, costumes and acting are up to high Broadway standards.
Director/translator Serge Postigo himself takes over the key father role of Mr. Banks from René Simard. Anglophones might need to brush up their French to follow Postigo’s witty translation.
Shows Dec. 26-30, and Jan. 3, 4 and 7 at 1 p.m. and Dec. 8-10, 15-17, 21-23, 27-29, and Jan. 3-7 at 7 p.m. at Théâtre St. Denis, 1594 St. Denis St. Tickets, $56.74$194.71, children 12 and under, $39.49. Call 514-790-1111 or www.theatrestdenis.com/en/ event/mary-poppins/.
AMOUR, ACIDE ET NOIX
Montreal choreographer Daniel Léveillé brings back two striking works from recent years that displayed the dignity of the nude body.
The dancers’ gestures are sober, restrained, unhurried. You come out of either show feeling purified.
Amour, Acide et Noix, Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 13 at 8 p.m., and La Pudeur des Iceberg, Dec. 15-16 at 8 p.m. Both shows at La Chapelle, 3700 St. Dominique St. Tickets, $18.50-$33.50 for each show. Call 514-843-7738.