The enduring appeal of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2019 19:26:29 +0000
Alberta Ballet’s Nutcracker
When: Dec. 28-30
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Tickets: from $44-105 at balletbc.com
For many audience members, a Nutcracker performance is a gateway to more than just a holiday perennial.
“It’s the first time most kids are going to see a ballerina in a tutu, with a cavalier (the Nutcracker’s principal male role) onstage,” said Jean Grand-Maître, artist director of Alberta Ballet. “In the same performance, these kids are going to discover a live orchestra, storytelling through dance, costuming, and magical sets — some of the most beautiful in Canada. And, with his production, you have children onstage for kids in the audience to identify with.”
Each production of Alberta Ballet’s Nutcracker in each new city features over 100 local kids, recruited from schools and coached by a local. The production also travels with four casts for every role.
“We do over 30, 40 performances a year, and dancers get tired or bored with roles, so every night we have a completely different cast of dancers on stage doing different roles,” Grand-Maître said. “This keeps the performance fresh and the dancers excited.”
When dancers are not performing principal roles, they’re often in small parts.
The ballet also features musicians from the VSO. Over $1 million worth of sets and costumes, the latter designed by Emmy Award-winning designer Zack Brown, and choreography by English choreographer Edmund Stripe, also distinguish this Nutcracker from the competition.
Grand-Maître commissioned Stripe after taking over as Alberta Ballet AD from Finnish dancer Mikko Nissinen in 2002. At the time, the ballet was dancing Nissinen’s production, which used the sets and the costumes from the previous version.
“He (Stripe) is extremely talented at creating productions for children and adults,” Grand-Maître said.
While the kids can thrill to the colour and spectacle, older audience members can enjoy the skill of the dancers. The production is one of the most technically challenging ballets the company performs, the artistic director says.
“The dancers really have to get on their point shoes and the men have to partner with great panache.”
Much-in-demand costume designer Brown agreed to do the project because he liked Stripe’s idea of staging the ballet in Imperialist Russia, when French fashions were all the rage, and at the time Tchaikovsky composed the score.
“The second act’s snow scenes are set in a Siberian forest, and we have Siberian wolves and the Sugar Plum Fairy in one of the most opulent costumes I’ve ever seen,” Grand-Maître said. “She appears and congratulates Klara (the heroine) for her courage and fighting her fears and they bring her to the palace and she brings out dancers from all over the world.”
Recently, some companies have begun to reassess, and sometimes change, the second act’s international dance sequence, and the stereotypes some believe they promote.
Ultimately, Alberta Ballet decided to keep the dances.
“When we created our production, we discussed how to avoid stereotypes and insulting other cultures. The brilliant music of Tchaikovsky initiates children to the music of Spain, to Arabic music, to Russian scores. It’s very rich that way. That being said, our cast is so international, we’ve always had dancers from every continent and that’s not just an accident. It’s part of our vision.”
Tchaikovsky’s classic endures, as a boon to ballet companies, many of whom need the holiday favourite to survive, as well as audiences.
“What’s interesting is that Tchaikovsky’s score, which is centuries-old now, can still entertain these virtual-world children in the theatre with the sounds of the orchestra, the symphonic crescendos, and all the drama and the fight with the soldiers and the rat-king and his army,” Grand-Maître said. “It’s really got something for the kids even so many years later still works. And that’s a gift from Tchaikovsky.”