This new production of Nutcracker is ambitious with a complicated but intelligent libretto which makes a welcome change for the audience.
Tag - The Nutcracker
From start to finish this Nutcracker ...is a true Christmas gift for children and adults alike – one of the most satisfying versions of the holiday classic I have ever seen.
Rawlins, 39, shared the numerous curtain calls with Colin Peasley, who must surely have broken some records for the longest full-time dancing career with one ballet company in history. His first appearance with the Australian Ballet was in Swan Lake in November 1962...
There were revelations on-screen, too. ...How many first-time spectators spot that the Biedermeyer-period Christmas cake in the Act 1 party provides the marzipan-and-icing set for Act II?
This wasn’t Shiori Kase's debut in the role, but it was remarkably polished and complete for one so young.
....the performance done, Muntagirov was promoted live on stage by new Director Tamara Rojo to the highest rank in the company - Lead Principal. A pleasant surprise, but in fact no surprise at all - it was only ever a question of time.
Most of the dancers on stage tonight were not even born when the Royal Ballet' s current Nutcracker production was new, and many of the audience too may imagine that it's been a feature of the Christmas season forever...
"While this may not be a Nutcracker for those looking for subtlety or sophistication, it’s a fun show designed to thrill adults as well as children.
And together, Kuranaga and Cirio make a superb couple, performing with such sensitive musicality and balanced unison that it sometimes seems you’re watching a single composite creature.
Not to be a scrooge-ish Grinch (or is it a grinchy Scrooge?), but I don’t really like all the sentimental and consumeristic trimmings and trappings that surround the holidays.
36 pictures by Dave Morgan...
As Clement Crisp wrote after Darrell’s death: ‘His ballets are true and fascinating mirrors of their age’. Timing a revival is always tricky. Would we want to see his Beatles ballet, Mods and Rockers (1963), again?
36 pictures by Dave Morgan...
Well, performing for me is really about that experience of giving to the audience. In the studio you work and perfect things, you collaborate with your partner, but for me it’s about what happens on the stage, the ability to give something, to your partner, to the audience.
When something is beautifully made it never gets old. So it is with Balanchine’s Nutcracker, first performed by New York City Ballet in 1954 and honed to near-perfection over the years.
Hubbe - handsome and captivating as ever in tight black jeans and an Errol Flynn mustache - assured the Works and Process audience that the famously elegiac Shades scene has not been tampered with...
In the intimate setting of the Linbury Studio Theatre, Lauren was joined by fellow principal, Nehemiah Kish, for an exclusive Masterclass called “The progression of the pas de deux”. Captivating all with her wit and warmth...
To be honest I don't think her first announcements are a landmark in repertoire terms - but it was never going to be unless some ballet fairy deposited a few extra million in the company coffers to allow instant change.
I saw the first cast led by Jin Yao, the top ballerina in the company. Her acting was superb, and her dancing too had a warm glow throughout.
"I think for me the high point is that I don’t see Boston audiences as having any limitations. When I got here everybody was telling me what I couldn’t do and people warned me to play it safe. But I have found people extremely open and willing to explore and I’m really thrilled about that."