Grigorovich's Nutcracker
Ellen Kent's Ballet International
Apollo Theatre until 9th February 2002

This production of the Nutcracker is a contrast between some very traditional elements (the settings and most of the choreography follow the classic Grigorovich ballet) and some major departures from the standard version. The most notable of these is that, perhaps due to a lack of principal soloists in the company, the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy have been written out altogether. This means that the latter half of the ballet loses many of its storytelling aspects, becoming merely a sequence of set pieces, although generally well executed. It also means that the weight of the ballet falls almost entirely on the dancer dancing Marie (sometimes known as Clara) who adds the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy to her traditional role. In general, she carries this off pretty well although there was little chemistry between her and the Nutcracker prince in their pas de deux. The dance of the snowflakes and dance of the sweets both suffered rather from the lack of a focus, but in general they managed to carry the changes off reasonably well.

The highlights of this production were the dances of the dolls. The Spanish dolls performed very nicely and were very well matched. The female Indian doll gave a beautiful performance as well as supporting her less able counterpart. In the Chinese pair the emphasis was the other way round with the male dancer taking the lead with some beautiful and well executed leaps. The French dolls were accompanied in their duet by a small lamb on wheels attached to a long ribbon. They managed with this extremely well, although it was a little distracting! Overall, a good production but without the breadth of the traditional Nutcracker.

Jo Charman, 04/02/2002