Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.We have Alicia Markova to blame (or bless) for London’s Yuletide Nutcrackers. In 1950 the former Diaghilev protégée staged a version of Tchaikovsky’s Casse Noisette for her brand new troupe. The postwar audience, starved of Sugar Plums, fell in love and the company, rechristened English National Ballet in 1989, has been dancing it — or something like it — every Christmas since. Thursday night saw the official unveiling of the latest production — the 11th — at the London Coliseum. The vibrant new sets and costumes are by seasoned opera and ballet designer Dick Bird whose early scenes take place in the urchin-infested alleys of Edwardian London. Clever flats and gauzes (and Paul Pyant’s nifty lighting) whisk us from Herr Drosselmeyer’s sweetie emporium to the grand reception chez Stahlbaum. The all-important moment when the Christmas tree expands to fill the stage is smoothly managed but there is more to a transformation than fast-moving scenery. The sequence never approximates the spine-tingling sleight of hand achieved in the two Peter Wright versions for Birmingham and Covent Garden but Leo Flint’s projections of rats scurrying along the wainscoting are an inspired (and scary) touch. Clara visits the Ice Realm then drives herself to Confituremburg aboard a flying crystal sleigh. Bird is at his very best in Act II, which is furnished with knightly pavilions in a Technicolor palette of ruby, sapphire, amethyst and gold — you’d think twice about the wallpaper but you’d definitely want the colouring book. Costumes are an orgy of confectionery: a dozen Buttercream Roses (the prettiest possible dip-dyed tutus); scrummy Spanish turron in its own vintage box plus an adorable jumble of tiny ballet tots dressed as liquorice allsorts (a nod to the handsome 1997 Derek Deane version). The production was conceived and choreographed by Aaron S Watkin (ENB director since 2023) and Arielle Smith. The snowflakes and sweeties are blandly classical but the Act I party ensembles — lots of head-jutting and hip-grinding — looked corny and out of place. Drosselmeyer’s dancing toys felt underwritten but dancing was strong throughout and there were some star turns in the second act including a show-stopping display from moustachioed Erik Woolhouse as the lead Makivnyk: every split jump a denial of gravity.Watkin and Smith felt that traditional Nutcrackers give Clara too little “agency”. This isn’t strictly true (see Wright et al) but their heroine certainly has plenty to do. The small girl of the party scenes — the charming Delilah Wiggins — is replaced by her adolescent self (Ivana Bueno) partnered by Francesco Gabriele Frola. The on-form couple, fired by Maria Seletskaja’s exhilarating tempi, add freshness and zest to Watkin’s duets-by-numbers and have real fun with their Rose Waltz variations: fouettés for Bueno; an explosive grande pirouette for Frola. This bravura sequence earned cheers but made the more delicate Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux feel anticlimactic. Watkin has unaccountably replaced the usual “after Ivanov” choreography with his own remix but it was given ballerina lustre by Emma Hawes on Thursday, her late-flowering wrists, hands and fingertips reluctantly unfurling each pose as if willing time to stand still.★★★★☆To January 12 2025, ballet.org.uk
