Dance
Sugar plum
Julie Kavanagh
The Nutcracker (Royal Opera House)
It's my guess that hundreds of little girls will leave Peter Wright's new production of The Nutcracker dreaming not of being dancers, but designers. The theatrical effects are surely the most ambitious and (when they work) most magical of any revival to date. The extreme authenticity of Julia Trevelyan Oman's Beidermeier set seems to increase the impact of the bizarre occurrences even more: the merging of Drosselmeyer with the clock face and the appearance of the mice struck me as far scarier than Hoffmann's original, lip- smacking descriptions; and consequently the small, dismayed voice that cried out one matinee: 'Go away you mouses!' came as no surprise at all.
In the transformation scene not only the Christmas tree but the whole room grows, thrillingly mirroring Tchaikovsky's cres- cendoing score (the composer even pro- vides music for the falling glitter). Although one is aware of lumbering scenic machinery in action — what Eliot de- scribed as 'a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness' — the transformation achieves its success through meticulous attention to detail: like the rocking horse left on stage as the room begins to expand to heighten our aware- ness of the changing scale; and the chariot from which Clara concusses the Mouse King, that is nothing more than an old man's bathchair (the reason our attention was tediously diverted by the Grand- father's dance earlier on). Having children enact the battle of mice and toy soldiers and populate the doll's house on stage plays extraordinary optical tricks — so much so that when Jonathan Cope appears as Mouse King he looks intimidatingly huge: 'How did they do that?' my eight- year-old companion whispered in awe.
Because the Lilliputian scene on stage has effectively distorted our sense of pro- portion, it's easier to accept the rather freakish, almost Ashtonian love duet that follows between the two child-size dancers, Clara (Julie Rose or Maria Almeida) and the now animate Nutcracker (Simon Rice or Guy Niblett), which Wright has added presumably in order to give these central characters more to do. But any reservation is soon dispelled by more visual wizardry: the appearance of an electric sleigh manned by an angel and the conjuring of a cloudscape backcloth into snow. This then melts into a trapdoor and the stage is bleached white by lights in anticipation of the Snowflakes scene.
Dazzling the audience with spectacle, and therefore stressing the validity of the fantastic (seeing is believing), is certainly one way of reconciling us to the irrationali- ties in The Nutcracker's scenario: the most common criticism being the lack of any dramatic link between the mundane and magical worlds of the two acts. But by taking his cue from Tchaikovsky's score which achieves musical coherence by weav- ing supernatural sonorities into the every- day sounds of Act I, Wright confronts rather than evades this issue. His main linking devices are angels, the agents of Dros- selmeyer's will, who dominate the ballet from the Prologue to the Apotheosis. It's a Christmas angel who, to the first fantastical sounds in the score, starts off the magic in Act I (a climactic passage that was com- pletely ignored in Peter Darrell's dismally unimaginative production screened this Christmas on BBC2). Other links include the revellers in fancy dress who prepare us for the divertissement in Act II; the rococo Christmas cake which is an exact replica in miniature of the set in Act II; and the mock-sinister owl clock (restored from Hoffmann and the original scenario) which, like the music, alerts us to Drossel- meyer's supernatural powers.
Fittingly, because Drosselmeyer strad- dles both worlds, Wright has shifted the dramatic emphasis away from Clara and followed Hoffmann in making Drossel- meyer's story central to the narrative. A knowledge of Hoffmann's sub-plot, 'The Story of the Hard Nut', certainly makes sense of the fairy tale (revealing the Nut- cracker to be Drosselmeyer's bewitched nephew, dependent on a young girl's pity to break the spell) and uncovers some poignant ambiguities in the otherwise sim- plistic action — most notably Drossel- meyer's tender bandaging of the Nutcrack- er after it has been smashed in two by Clara's brother. However, although this plot works well on paper, it's too compli- cated to establish on stage: the Prologue Wright adds to introduce the Nutcracker/ Nephew connection is not explained through dance or mime and would be unfathomable to anyone without a pro- gramme note. The two Drosselmeyers I saw, John Auld and Michael Coleman, both capture the character's strange com- bination of sinisterness, drollness and melancholy, but despite Wright's innova- tions, this remains a choreographically unsatisfactory role — for the simple reason that the audience forgets about Drossel- meyer during the divertissement of Act II (as indeed anyone sitting left of the centre of the house will forget about Clara and the Nephew, tucked out of sight on one side of the stage).
Because Act II is dramatically static — and there are no theatrical tricks apart from an encounter with a magic cloak that misfired on four out of five occasions — the ballet depends entirely on the dance interest. But of the divertissements only Danse Arabe, newly choreographed by Wright and with a wonderfully sultry per- formance by Gail Taphouse, seemed to me choreographically substantial. The Waltz of the Flowers came as an anticlimax after the stunning Snowflakes' Waltz of Act I: this is a danced evocation of a blizzard using the original 'lost' floor patterns, rediscovered by Professor Roland John Wiley, whose invaluable research informs much of this production.
Among the five different casts of the Prince and Sugar Plum Fairy, I found the performance by Lesley Collier and Anthony Dowell — closely followed by that of Fiona Chadwick and Wayne Eagl- ing — to be the most memorable. It takes stars to deliver the technical bravura and project the epic confidence that Tchaikov- sky's grand pas de deux music demands (particularly under Gennady Rozhdest- vensky's outstanding conducting). Karen Paisey sparkled prettily enough and so did Ravenna Tucker who provided the most impressive fouette sequence. Bryony Brind and Jonathan Cope's Boxing Night per- formance was surprisingly disappointing — bungled and apologetic — although both have what it takes, and more. Perhaps, like everyone else, they were still suffering from the indulgences of the day before. I wish them better luck next time.
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