THE GREAT RUSSIAN NUTCRACKER (Moscow Ballet/Stream Theatre)***

 

By Emma

Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/11 £23

Available until: Livestreams at 5pm every day until 1^st January 2021.

I did enjoy this really. There are lots of things about this production which are really great.

Firstly, the music. How could you not love the music? There are so many great tunes and the orchestra plays them brilliantly, it’s a really full sound and it’s like the music swells with emotion.

The choreography is also beautiful. There are two moments I especially remember. There’s one dance with two dancers and each of them is wearing a wing on one arm. I’ve never seen anything like that before and it’s really amazing.

I also love the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, there’s a musical phrase which is repeated a lot and she jumps in time to the music and her skirt bobs and there is something so playful about this which I don’t think I’ve seen from the Sugar Plum Fairy before. She usually seems quite cold and distant, though that makes sense considering what the music is like and that she’s often The Other Woman. It’s the most human I’ve ever seen her. (I don’t have a cast list so I don’t know who played any of the roles.)

There are also some really beautiful costumes, some really grand ones for the party and lots of different styles in Act 2.

I especially liked the painted backdrops for the scenes (I hope that’s the right word, it’s like they painted great big pictures and stuck them to the back of the stage). I have a couple of favourites I particularly remember. There’s a really beautiful snow scene with trees and mountains in a slightly icy but beautiful blue with snowflake video images played over the top. There’s also a town square with arches and a swimming pool which they used in the Waltz of the Flowers. It looks like the stage stretches a long way back but I think it is all painted and it’s gorgeous.

The problem is that it seemed to be one dance after another and even though I know the story, it was difficult to follow it and to work out who some of the characters are. Everything that happened on the stage is really great but I wish it had been a bit clearer.

I really liked all the characters I did manage to pick out. Masha (who is called Clara in the other productions I’ve seen) seems like a very sweet, well-behaved girl, but she dreams of having a more eventful and romantic life and she is able to achieve this for a short time and it brings her out of her shell a bit but she doesn’t have a big personality transplant which is always annoying. The Prince has a very strong stage presence which is really attractive and appealing. The guy I thought was Drosselmeyer is much younger and more attractive than usual but he still has an eccentric air. I’ve already mentioned that I liked the Sugar Plum Fairy.

There are also short films between the scenes where people involved in the production talk about ballet which is really interesting.

I think this is a good production but I made a mistake by going in with certain expectations. If I’d just watched for the visual spectacle and not worried about the story I think I’d have given it at least four stars but my review should probably be based on the experience I did have, not the experience I should have had.