For the better part of the last decade I’ve been a bit of Bah-Humbug, Grinchy Scrooge towards the family friendly fun time known as Christmas. However, the idea of being lucky enough to see Queensland’s Ballet perform The Nutcracker accompanied by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra was too good of an opportunity to pass up. To hear some of the world’s most famous compositions written by Tchaikovsky for The Nutcracker would alone be worth the price of admission with the set design, dancers and actors making the performance a true spectacle.
The production is beautifully designed by Thomas Boyd who truly captures the spirit of that truly magical Christmas feeling, which can sometimes be difficult to pry from an old Grinch like me. However, as soon as the curtains were lifted I felt enchanted by the old English town backdrop projected onto the thin curtain, giving a three dimensional effect as the actors walked across the stage in line, adults towing their kids in sleds, and a woman slipping in the improvised sleet.
When the opening scene finished the second layer of curtains lifted to reveal an exorbitantly opulent family living room with a deluxe Christmas tree that reached the ceiling. A grandiose family occupy the living quarters dressed exquisitely by costume designer Desmond Heeley and Noelene Hill who outfitted the actors in ranges of brown and maroon felt coats for the men, blues and yellows for the boys and lavish corsets for the women.
As the act unfolds the guests are seen walking through the snow to arrive to the family Christmas party. The play truly begins when the fun flute-based music plays and all the actors are seen interacting with one another, such as when the children play, boys teasing the girls with toy guns, the parents rush around pouring drinks and greeting guests while the old people steal the attention by falling over, failing to hear conversation and other elderly woes society enjoys having a bit of a giggle at.
This scene is impeccably rehearsed and is one of the most fun scenes of the whole show, mixing a lot of humour with small small bits of ballet from the young girls and boys as they play together. It brought along some relief for me as I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy an entire show of strictly ballet, this opening showed that this was more of a family fun theatre show with the ballet being more of a feature in the second half.
Eventually an eye patch clad baron Dr. Drosselmeyer arrives in flamboyant dance bringing gifts. One gift in particular if you’re unaware of the story is a nutcracker (a wooden soldier that’s mouth cracks nuts). He gives the toy to Clara, one of the young girls of the family, and she dances across the stage in joy.
The party ends and the next scene shows Clara go to sleep with her Nutcracker toy, but is awakened by rats in the room, which she runs from, but is swiftly saved by the Nutcracker, now in the form of one hell of a ballet dancing man. The toy rat is also transformed into a personal nightmare of mine, human sized attacking rats. My favourite dance of the night commences as we see team rat led by the King Rat fight The Nutcracker and his blue and white clad soldiers. The dance is part ballet part sword fencing pirouettes, and is immensely enjoyable. The rat king is defeated as the Nutcracker transforms into a handsome prince performed by Alexander Idaszak and he swiftly takes Clara away in a swan styled sleigh to the Kingdom of Sweets as the first half comes to an end.
The second half sees Clara perched on a seat in the middle of the Kingdom of Sweets set decorated spectacularly with lavish cakes everywhere as she gets to be a guest of honour to the Sugar Plum Fairy. The party starts with three memorable dancers each from different cultures beginning with a Spanish style dance, an astonishingly sinuous Arabian dance, and the crowd favourite Russian dance full of leg kicks and claps.
The Sugar Plum Fairy and Nutcracker Prince exquisitely execute the grand pas de deux, which brings the ballet to its pinnacle as the show comes to a close. I wish I could throw more French terms for ballet dance moves into this review unfortunately the two already used have exhausted my French vocabulary. I walked in Ebenezer Scrooge but left full of the Christmas spirit. An extraordinary performance that’s fit for the whole family.
Until 22nd Dec, 2018
Lyric Theatre, QPAC
Thomas Harrison