BRB (live stream), 18/12/2020
Tchaikovsky : The Nutcracker
Artists of Birmingham Royal Ballet
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Paul Murphy
With all the push-me-pull-you of the pandemic restrictions, sanitary measures and lockdown tiers, it's a miracle the BRB ever managed to get together enough people and time to even contemplate staging their Nutcracker, which has been a Christmas tradition in Birmingham for the last 30 years. Add to that the unavailability of the company's usual theatre, and the problems must have looked nearly insurmountable. As it did once before, when the Hippodrome was undergoing refurbishment, Birmingham Repertory Theatre stepped in as an alternative venue, and tonight should have been the first night of an actual run, in front of a live audience, of this perennial favourite. New restrictions put paid to that, but the company nevertheless proceeded with the planned livestream.
Faced with the need to make the production not only Covid-safe for the company, but also adapted to a significantly smaller stage area, there were obviously going to be some major alterations to what is, under normal performing conditions and in its rightful home, arguably the finest production of Nutcracker in the country. The reduced orchestration for the score was well done. I expected, but still regretted, the loss of the transformation scene's full effects, here replaced by video, although on the whole John Macfarlane's designs remain as magnificent as ever. What I found harder to swallow were some of the musical edits. Nutcracker is short enough as it is, just about 90 minutes of actual music. The rationale behind a significant excision of numbers in Act 1 was clear enough, it was mostly the social dances, and the numbers on stage had to be kept down. I also quite liked that in place of the Columbine and Harlequin automata, we got Nutcracker and Sugar Plum Fairy dolls, that worked well.
What company director Carlos Acosta did to Act 2, however, I find much harder to understand. Why cut the Reed Flutes, when the four girls were right there in costume? Why cut the Waltz of the Flowers, again, when there were dancers in costume, and when they had managed to do the Snowflake Waltz? And why cut the Coda from the pas de deux? Bringing the pas de deux on right after the Gopak completely undermined its grandeur which is, on the contrary, set up by the exhilarating swirl of the Waltz of the Flowers. This was all quite damaging to the act as a whole.
Fortunately, the dancing did not appear to suffer. Momoko Hirata and César Morales were the Fairy and the Prince, concise and elegant. Carla Doorbar was a very nice Clara, fluid and fresh, with a genuine sense of wonder to her, while Alys Shee was a vivacious Snow Fairy, and the company as a whole seemed fresh and keen.
[Next : 19th December]