Just as the Nutcracker is integral to the Christmas season, so it is also to English National Ballet, which – enforced covid closures excepted – has been performed by the company in every year since 1950.
Like many, I was growing tired of the version that had been presented since 2010 and particularly its unseasonably spartan second act set and have looked forward to the advent of this eleventh ENB Nutcracker – and the first to be choreographed by artistic director, Aaron S. Watkin (in collaboration with Arielle Smith). The good news is that it is a distinct improvement on its predecessor, bringing vibrant colour and interesting innovation and logic to this well-worn subject.
Working closely with designer Dick Bird, Watkin and Smith have emphasised the ballet’s association with confectionery and the Edwardian era, setting the reality of act one in London. Both aspects are introduced strongly in a lengthy prologue that begins in Drosselmeyer’s Emporium of Sweets and Delights with its secret attic workshop and then outside in a Festive Street Market, complete with a pair of acrobatic chimney sweeps (shades of Mary Poppins and Dick Van Dyke – who, bless him, turned 99 on the day after this performance) and a suffragette duo on their soap boxes, evoking the era very successfully.
Smith drew the short straw of being responsible for choreographing the Stahlbaum’s Christmas Eve Party with its limited scope for innovation. Drosselmeyer is, of course, key to this event and Junor Souza took the opportunity to bring a special ‘Mad Hatter’ charisma to this role. I confess to being disappointed by his limited array of magical tricks although the way in which the broken Nutcracker doll was invisibly mended was impressive.
The segue from reality to fantasy comes via young Clara’s dreams after cuddling up with her Nutcracker doll on the sofa when everyone had retired to bed. The young Clara (Delilah Wiggins) dreams of herself as an adolescent (Ivana Bueno) as the house around her transforms into monumental size – an effect achieved by digital rather than physical means. Both this, and the battle with the Rat King (James Streeter) and his minions were disappointing although it was a clever device to bring the suffragettes into the battle (linking it to Clara’s memory of the earlier street festivities) and even better to emphasise that feminist empowerment by having Clara deliver the killing blow to the giant rodent, prior to her budding romance with the Nutcracker Prince (Francesco Gabriele Frola).
Thereafter, Watkin took over the choreographic lead, firstly in the beautiful patterns of icicles and snowflakes in the Ice Realm, presided over by Anna Nevzorova as Isolde, the Ice Queen. Just as the suffragettes had followed from reality into Clara’s dream so all the other characters are based on her daytime memories: the Rat King was based on Uromys Grimsewer, the sinister cheese seller; Isolde bore a striking resemblance to Clara’s eccentric aunt and the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier were based on her parents.
The transition to the Land of Sweets and Delights is – rather like Cinderella’s journey to the Ball – a visual highlight of any Nutcracker. In the former ENB version it was by hot air balloon, in Peter Wright’s version for Birmingham Royal Ballet it is on the back of an enormous goose, and in his production for The Royal Ballet it is via a disguised milk float driven by a mirliton! Here, the Watkin/Smith/Bird combo opt for an ice sleigh pulled incongruously by a seahorse. Their journey across a silvery sky is sensitively enhanced by Leo Flint’s excellent digital designs.
Act 2 is where the magic of this production truly shines as adolescent Clara experiences the dances of the various sweets and delights that she witnessed in Drosselmeyer’s Emporium and these are all appropriately delightful, not least the very imaginative introduction of the first dance through a wooden Turrón box with the dancers embedded inside like figures made of the Spanish nougat. It was design with that wow factor!
Instead of national dances, each episode was based on a traditional sweet form (Egyptian Sahlab, Chinese Tanghulu, Ukrainian Makivnyk, German Marzipan flutes and ubiquitous Liquorice Allsorts). The latter was rather cutely performed by young children dressed in liquorice costumes led by Rentaro Nakaaki as a benevolent Bertie Bassett! Each set of sweets were housed in a colourful array of Arabian style tents with that of the Sugar Plum in the centre. Emma Hawes was an especially radiant Sugar Plum Fairy, supported by Aitor Arrieta as her Cavalier. Their pas de deux was a strong climax to an excellent act, which ends with the young Clara’s awakening on her sofa in the Stahlbaum House.
That Nutcracker is a worldwide phenomenon is due to its glorious score and Tchaikovsky’s music was given a suitably brisk account by the ENB Philharmonic under the direction of Maria Seletskaja.
