Jittery start but Clara’s dream soon comes to life
AS the temperature plunged to -2C outside, the warmth of the theatre was certainly welcome as a busy auditorium gathered to watch a little bit of late Christmas magic – The Nutcracker.
One of the most famous ballets, with music by Tchaikovsky, even if you know nothing about ballet, you’ll recognise the score – it’s almost hit after hit of classical tunes.
The story is a great one for families and a perfect introduction to ballet for children. It’s all about Clara (Arissa Hashimoto) who’s given a wooden nutcracker doll as a Christmas gift by party guest Dr Drosselmeyer (Azamat Askarov). Her brother, Fritz (Adilet Karipov), breaks it in a fit of jealousy; the doctor fixes it and, when the festivities are over, Clara falls asleep and into a magical dream.
This is where the ballet really starts for me as you’re swept away by the incredible music while the giant mice battle with the soldiers and Clara is eventually transported to the Kingdom of Sweets. It’s a child’s dream after all.
The production may have had all the right ingredients at the start for a playful party – puppets, colourful costumes, sparkly dresses, Santa hats – but it was a jittery beginning. Some of the dancers weren’t in sync and it felt slightly lacklustre. Maybe it was the weather, maybe we all needed a bit of warming up.
Towards the end of Act 1, the robotic mouse with red glowing eyes gave the audience a few giggles and set the scene for the giant mice and the Mouse King (Alan Shaken) to appear through dry ice for a wonderful routine that terrifies the young Clara.
As the ‘snow’ fell before the interval, it felt like the ballet had finally come to life. The momentum continued into Act 2 where we were treated to a more attuned corps de ballet, along with the much-loved Sugar Plum Fairy (also played by the superb Arissa Hashimoto), the Spanish dance, Russian, the delightful Chinese dance (with the incredibly energetic Yume Toshine and Kaskyrbay Yeskali) and the beautifully controlled Eastern dance from Zhanna Tevosyan who gave, for me, the stand-out and most mesmerising performance.
■ The International Classic Ballet Theatre continues at the Theatre Royal tonight with and then tomorrow and Saturday with