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The Nutcracker


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Casting has gone up - surpringly early, considering the general trend until now...

Five Sugar Plums: Amy Watson, Susanne Grinder and J'aime Crandall who have all danced the part before as far as I know. Soloists Alexandra Lo Sardo and Caroline Baldwin will also be dancing the role and I think they're both debuting? Baldwin danced the PDD at the summer tour.

Five Cavaliers: Gregory Dean, Marcin Kupinski, Jonathan Chmelensky have all danced the part before, right? As far as I know, both Jón Axel Fransson and Alexander Bozinoff are debuting. I'm really glad to see them make such good use of Fransson this season. Maybe it'll be good for his career that Lendorf is split between the RDB and ABT...

Four Dewdrops: Holly Jean Dorger, Ida Praetorius, Hilary Guswiler and Lena-Maria Gruber. I only know that Dorger and Praetorius have done this part before. Anyone know about Guswiler and Gruber?

Drosselmeier will be danced by Poul-Erik Hesselkilde, Morten Eggert and Sebastian Kloborg.

Anyone planning on going? Which cast will you be seeing or which cast would you have liked to see?

I'll be catching the early performance on the 12th which means Crandall!Sugar Plum, Fransson!Cavalier, Gruber!Dewdrop and Kloborg!Drosselmeier - a cast that I'm overall content with. After having seen Crandall as Odette/Odile, I'm excited to see her in more of the classics. I'm very excited about Fransson as her Cavalier, intrigued by Kloborg!Drosselmeier, since Kloborg is a dancer I haven't been able to follow very closely until now. I love Gruber and can't wait to see her Dewdrop.

Ideally, I'd have loved to see Baldwin as Sugar Plum. She was amazing when I saw her at the summer tour. As she would be dancing with Dean and have Dorger for Dewdrop, I must admit that I would have loved to see one of their performances...

I'm a big fan of Grinder and would always love to see her Sugar Plum again, but I'm getting very tired of how they continue to pair her up with Kupinski. I don't think they match each other very well - neither of them give bad performances, but there's just no real connection. Besides, she would have Guswiler for Dewdrop and while I think Guswiler is very talented, it's not a performance I would give my right arm to attend.

Having recently fallen madly in love with Lo Sardo, I would definitely have felt tempted to attend one of her performances. However, if I should see her in a leading role, I'm not sure Sugar Plum would be my first choice for her. She'd make a good Nikiya, I think.

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I attended the performance Saturday at noon. The house was completely full, even the standing rows on the top balcony were sold out. It was wonderful seeing the theatre drown in such an influx, doesn't happen very often.

I'll give a full review of the performance later, when I'm not so tired (just got home from Copenhagen a few hours ago), but for now I'll just say that this performance renewed my belief in The Nutcracker in general and Balanchine's Nutcracker in particular. I saw the RDB perform it a couple of seasons ago and wasn't smitten at all. This time, I was crying at several points and most of the ballet was a gigantic success.

However, the orchestra (or the conductor) made a mess of the music and it was really grating on the ears, not to mention that several of the solos suffered under it, too.

First act highlights were: Sebastian Kloborg as Drosselmeyer. He was absolutely amazing and defined the role for me. Andreas Kaas as the soldier, although the music was off, he still managed to create the appropriate wow effect and remind me how great a dancer he has become. Hope he's on his way to (if not principal) then soloist ranks soon. Lastly, the snowflake segment was beyond gorgeous, it was to die for and I was so happy to see the girls be a proof of how Hübbe has brought a great diversity into the corps in term of body types. The dancing was amazing and the entire scene just came together marvellously and ended first act on the perfect note.

Second act highlights were: Amy Watson as Sugar Plum (I'd expected and looked forward to see J'aime Crandall, since that's what the official site announced, but I know Alexandra Lo Sardo is out with an injury where Crandall has been covering for her, so they've obviously switched performances around a lot and not changed it on the site yet). I've been ambivalent about Watson since I first saw her, but she truly won me over as Sugar Plum. She has the perfect face and air for the role and especially her PDD with Jonathan Chmelensky was divine. She's lucky that Chmelensky is (in my opinion) one of the best partners amongst the male dancers in the RDB and it showed in their PDD, too. It was absolutely amazing. Other than that, I loved the Spanish dance where the leading pair was Camilla Ruelykke and Sebastian Haynes. I've been a Haynes fan from the get-go, but he rocked the Spanish dance yesterday, showing incredibly energy and intensity - plus some great chemistry with Rueykke whom I was happy to see on stage again, I've been missing her all last season. Finally, my favourite Stephanie Chen was dancing the Arabian solo and she was so intense, I have no words. Her gorgeous body and her incredible facial features just made the dance come to life like I've never seen it before. Stupid headdress aside, she looked fabulous in the costume and it accentuated her movements beautifully.

All in all, I think it was a very succesful performance and I am so happy the rest of the run is sold out. Lovely to see the Danes finally take a bit of interest in their ballet company. I know it's just for the holidays, but with quality dancing like this, I am sure some of them at least will find their way into the red velvet seats at the Old Stage.

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Full review of the 1 o'clock performance Saturday. Fair warning, it's loooooong.

I’ll be frank, before I get this review started. I am not a Nut-fan. My first exposure to it was Peter Wright’s choreography for the Royal Ballet, the DVD with Miyako Yoshida as Sugar Plum and the first time I watched it, I wasn’t impressed at all, the following times only slightly more so. However, I do prefer the RB production to Balanchine’s. I think having an adult dancing Clara makes the two acts come together and make the entire thing much more watchable than with a child in the role. I watched Balanchine’s Nutcracker when it was on the playbill with the RDB a couple of seasons back and was severely disappointed. The dancers did what they could at the time with the choreography, but I just thought that (aside from a few very singular highlights), it was a dull and dreary affair. This was the knowledge with which I sat down in my amazing front row seat Saturday. I was smack in the middle, seated between a complete family (complete as in mom, dad, two children and grandparents on either side) on their annual Christmas culture expedition and a lonely girl who seemed more interested in her phone throughout. I was in the theatre with my girlfriend, but because we’d come rather late to the ticket party, all good seats next to each other were unavailable, so we opted for a first and chose separate seats – and because I have an amazing girlfriend, she let me take the front row seat on the floor, while she herself got a front row seat on the balcony which she insisted that she preferred anyway.

The RDB has been horrible about announcing casting this season, though (at least) for The Nutcracker, they listed the main roles more than a week in advance. However, Alexandra Lo Sardo seems to have been injured before her first Sugar Plum, leaving J’aime Crandall to cover for her and this has apparently messed up the casting dates without the changes being noted on the official site. Thus, I was expecting to see J’aime Crandall and Jon Axel Fransson as Sugar Plum and her Cavalier (a combination that I had truly looked forward to), only to read in my hand-out cast list that Amy Watson and Jonathan Chmelensky would be dancing the parts. Ah, well, I was hopeful. Although Amy Watson and I have enjoyed a dispassionate audience-artist relation over the past many years, I could easily imagine that Sugar Plum of all roles might be exactly the part for her, not to mention that Chmelensky is a favourite of mine. So I curbed my disappointment and instead decided to let myself be pleasantly surprised, if everything turned out for the best.

And almost everything did!

Although as soon as the overture started playing, I could hear that the orchestra was off by miles (I swear, the musical performance of The Nutcracker that I heard this weekend was one of the worst performances I’ve yet had to sit through from Det Kongelige Kapel) and it must be said that there were parts of the dance performance that suffered under the lack of musical coherency, the RDB presented a wholly enjoyable and very, very successfully The Nutcracker this time around. I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it. When it was time for curtain call, the entire house was soon on its feet and this was a sold out house, so there were many people standing as they applauded.

I remember from my first encounter with Balanchine’s The Nutcracker that I found the first act jaw-crackingly boring, right up until the Waltz of the Snowflakes. But Saturday blessed me with Sebastian Kloborg as Drosselmeier and he not only managed to run like a red thread through the Stahlbaum party, but he truly defined the role for me. He wasn’t old and scary, rather he was the eccentric, odd uncle I guess most families sport at least one, if not several of. The kind you know will never marry for whatever reason and who serves an entirely different purpose within the family dynamics at every party he graces with his presence. I absolutely adored him and he reaped a much-deserved, thunderous applause at first act’s curtain call. I also think that the RDB character dancers and corps really brought something out in the setting of Balanchine’s first act. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stahlbaum were lovingly portrayed by Cedric Lambrette and Eva Kloborg respectively, while the other guests and the maids were given individual storylines that you could follow as they unfolded on stage. The one I noticed most and kept returning to when I got tired of watching the children was a young housewife type in a very faint blue dress whose sleeves she kept tugging further and further down her arms to expose her shoulders in the general direction of her disinterested husband who was much more interested in the maid who was serving drinks. Eventually the housewife got so fed up with his disregard that she walked up to the maid herself and just snatched a champagne flute, drowning it all in one go from sheer frustration. It was marvellous acting which I really thought brought life and entertainment to a scene that can otherwise grow very long and dull.

As for the children of the production… I think especially our Marie (is she always called Marie in Balanchine’s Nutcracker or is that only here?) was quite spectacular. Mathilde Cohn – she was incredibly expressive and already a fabulous actress even while dancing. I look forward to seeing if she has a future in the RDB one day. Lukas Helt who danced Fritz was quite amusing to watch, too. Phillip Katsnelson who portrayed the Nutcracker Prince did best in the beginning, but really did have great interaction with Cohn’s Marie at the party, in a manner that made you very much buy their childhood sweetheart romance.

The first solos were with Julien Roman as Harlequin and Silvia Selvini as Columbine. I think their dances really suffered under the botched musical accompaniment. Silvia Selvini managed to hold on to the doll-like movements almost throughout and was a joy to look at in her costume, but Roman seemed to struggle following a tempo that was close to impossible to distinguish. However, as the Soldier Doll, Andreas Kaas who came after was nothing short of amazing and despite the music still not being up to par, he upheld the wow effect that this solo must have not to fall flat. He was completely on point at all times and there was a boy seated behind me who had shown no interest in the production at all until then, but who muttered to his mom: Wow, look at that!

I am really sold on Kaas. I loved him as Armand, even if I didn’t necessarily think that particular La Dame aux Camélias performance was a great success and I’ve loved him in everything I’ve seen him in since, particularly in an absolutely lovely Flower Festival PDD with Kizzy Matiakis at the RDB’s summer tour this year. Hopefully, he’ll soon be named soloist. God knows, the company could need more male soloists in their ranks.

The battle against the mice was what it was. I will never really enjoy that part. I think the children were adorable and Bryant Steenstra was very good at improvising when Cohn missed her mark and had her shoe soar right over his head, instead of at him. Other than that, I was basically just sitting tight, waiting for the Waltz of the Snow Flakes – my absolute favourite part of Balanchine’s Nutcracker, especially in the RDB’s magnificent sets.

It didn’t disappoint whatsoever.

First off, the music picked up and finally settled at a quality not too far from the usual. Our corps girls were spectacular and like previously noted, it was so lovely to see that our company at this point has broadened in its range of accepted body types. None of these girls are an ounce overweight (although, I’ve had the displeasure of sitting next to two elderly ladies who were rather crudely discussing whether Ji Min Hong wasn’t a bit too fat to dance), but you now see curves that there were none of when I started attending the RDB’s performances just five year ago. It makes me so incredibly happy.

They were all perfectly in sync and added a great pace and that particular feeling of “flutter” to their dancing, so it really felt like a small blizzard. I know the hand-held snowball contraptions aren’t to everyone’s liking, but I personally really enjoy the sense of flight and fall that they add to the dancers port de bra. At the end of this scene, I was left with a fair few tears at the corner of my eye. It was very, very moving to see.

The funny thing is that after having written this first half of my review, I realise that I was going to say that the second act of Balanchine’s Nutcracker is my favourite aspect of the production, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Perhaps because both acts have their strong points and less strong points and if they had been paired with another act that the one they each precede/follow, I think they would each have made much more sense, too. Because no matter how much I think first act lacks true dancing qualities, second act just isn’t the answer to that shortcoming. The second act doesn’t seem to throw any ties back to the world of the first act whatsoever and once the Sugar Plum Fairy has been introduced, it all waters down to an endless display of variations with no real connection or story. Dancing for the sake of dancing alone and it seems a tad bit misplaced in a story ballet. If only Marie had been the red thread throughout like the character is in Peter Wright’s version, for example, I think it would have faired better…

That said, the dancing we saw in the second act was for the most part mesmerizing, though still not consistently helped along by the music. Amy Watson’s entry as the Sugar Plum Fairy was one of the most enchanting things I ever saw. She was charming, warm, engaged and with a very sweet expression, all attributes I don’t normally associate with Watson at all, but she made an instant fan of me.

Up first was the Chocolate dance. I was pleased to see Camilla Ruelykke Holst listed as the leading woman – I don’t think I saw her in any parts worth of note all last season and she’s a nostalgic favourite of mine. She was lovely and contagiously good-humoured to watch, but the true star of the Chocolate dance was Sebastian Haynes as the lead man. The Spanish theme suited him perfectly, the brown costume which might otherwise have easily washed him out only made him pop and he was so alive, so full of energy and invited a thrilling chemistry with Ruelykke that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was gorgeous. I have loved him since I first saw him in a role where I could look up his name, but this was truly a powerful performance from him. I hope that he, much like Kaas, will soon be promoted to soloist. He deserves it so much.

Next was my other corps favourite, Stephanie Chen Gundorph. For a solo that relies so much on the music, her Arabian Coffee was amazing. Chen Gundorph has the most incredibly intense features and she knows how to use them, too – while, at the same time, her dancing carries the same intensity. Recently I saw someone describing her as a work of art on Instagram and I honestly couldn’t agree more. She looked great in the Arabian costume, although I think the headgear was awful and didn’t do her any favours. Nevertheless, the skirt billowed just perfectly around her long, lean legs and the two-part garment only helped elongating her already tall figure. She was a sight to behold and her perfect use of the timbers gave me goosebumps. The dad who was sitting next to me and who had otherwise been sleeping a major percentage of the performance away suddenly woke up and came to life. Seductive and mesmerizing, those were the perfect words to describe her with.

Then followed the Chinese dance and I must say that not only was I disappointed to see that the RDB hadn’t done away with the awful pointing fingers, but I really disliked the costumes for (especially the two female) dancers. Such stereotypical colour choices and motifs, teacups for hats and the teapot Julien Roman who danced the lead had to climb out of. I just didn’t like it one bit, although Roman had very impressive split jumps and he should be rightfully praised for those.

Another favourite of mine, Liam Redhead, danced the Candy Cane dance with the hoop and I remember being distinctively impressed by this one the first time around – and since I absolutely love Liam Redhead and think him capable of pretty much anything and everything, I had high hopes. It wasn’t that I was disappointed as such, but the music wasn’t helping him and he just did everything so nonchalantly that it seemed almost too easy which I know this choreography is anything but. It wasn’t the best I’d seen him during the solo itself, but later when the various sweets enter the stage again during the finale, his hoop-jumping looked much more impressive, despite how there really wasn’t a great difference in his execution aside from the music which really (finally) nailed it at the end.

Next cue was for the Marzipan Shepherdesses led by Ida Praetorius. I will get two things off my chest right away. I hate, hate, hate the Marzipan costumes that RDB has stuck those poor ballerinas in. They are absolutely hideous. Secondly, either Saturday’s noon performance wasn’t Ida Praetorius’ moment to shine or she simply disliked the costume as much as I did. She looked very out of her element, often somewhat strained in her smile and less on point dancing-wise than I know that she’s capable of. Or maybe she was bored. The Marzipan dance isn’t very exciting and I’ve noticed a general tendency with Praetorius that she needs choreography/roles that she can really connect with for her amazing charisma to burn through in full. Lolita was perfect for her, the young self in The Death That Best Preserves likewise, whereas the Marzipan Shepherdess…? Not so much.

Cedric Lambrette was back in act two as Mother Ginger and he was amazing. Very amusing to watch. He drew tons of laughter, especially from the children.

One of the dancers I’d looked most forward to seeing was Lena-Maria Gruber as Dewdrop. I’m a big fan of Gruber and have plenty of fond memories of her dazzling smile from other roles – and could easily imagine that she’d be perfect as Dewdrop with her strong technique. Not to mention that Eva Kistrup had spoken very warmly of her take on the role in her latest review. So, maybe I had sat myself up for disappointment, especially with how the orchestra completely butchered the entire Flower Waltz, from start to finish. Gruber wasn’t the only one who suffered under it. All the ballerinas struggled to make the choreography the cohesive, beautiful whole it’s supposed to be and for the most part, they failed.

Gruber, for her part, didn’t quite achieve the lightness and finesse that Dewdrop requires to hold the Waltz as a whole together. She held her positions beautifully and several of her leaps were very nice, but none of it made me go wow like I might have expected and remember from seeing Ida Praetorius dance the role in 2013. However, I think it was most obvious from the Flowers that the choreography just generally didn’t come together as it should, because it looked rather messy. As solo flowers we had Alba Nadal and Kizzy Matiakis, two very strong dancers under normal circumstances and Nadal also managed to soldier through largely unscathed, but Matiakis appeared to hurt herself very early on in the dance, badly enough that she had difficulties stretching and lifting one of her legs fully. Matiakis is usually one of those dancers who makes everything look easy, breezy, always with an air of lightness about her, so the change was noticeable and I couldn’t help also notice that the only times she could smile was when Nadal and she locked eyes. A thin smile that did make Nadal look somewhat alarmed. Nevertheless, she got through the entire dance and appeared back on stage for all the other segments where the flowers dance, so it mustn’t have been bad enough to warrant that she pull out, just bad enough that it looked extremely hurtful even to my untrained eye.

Finally, Amy Watson and Jonathan Chmelensky entered the stage again and embarked on one of the most beautiful renditions of the Sugar Plum PDD that I have seen. As partners, they suited each other very well, with Watson’s sweet demeanour absorbing a bit of Chmelensky’s regality as her Cavalier, while she added the necessary frosting to his character in return. Chmelensky is undoubtedly one of the best dancers in the company when it comes to partnering skills and he really showed just how reliable a force he is while dancing with Watson. There were no disasters in their PDD, but there were a couple of times where Watson would wobble, look strained or otherwise seem to need the extra support and he supported her effortlessly, making the entire thing look rather perfect. Their chemistry was very intimate and they reminded me a bit of wedding cake figures, in the best of ways. I remember reading in a review of the last Nutcracker run that Watson had struggled with the shoulder landing last time she danced the role, but there were no such issues this time around. She landed beautifully on Chmelensky’s shoulder both times and he lifted her with ease. Really, it was an incredible PDD.

Watson struggled a bit more obviously in the Sugar Plum variations, but made no blunders and had some great moments here and there, too. Mostly she just seemed to suffer from sore feet with her expression stiffening every now and then, rather than making any real choreographic mistakes. It didn’t distract from her overall success in the role, I think.

On the other hand, there was no strain or stumble with Jonathan Chmelensky in his Cavalier solos. I know that Chmelensky is Cuban-trained and his jumping especially still shows it. Once more, the boy behind me woke up from his slumber and was loudly impressed. Several of his finishes and leaps reaped completely spontaneous applause from an audience that obviously, mostly consisted of non-ballet goers. I thought THAT was impressive, but fully deserved. This is really a role that Chmelensky has defined for me and I don’t even normally find it that interesting a role, so it’s well-meant praise.

The finale was lovely, especially as the music picked up and caught up to par with the dancing. Once more, as the curtain fell, I was left behind with a few stay tears that dried on my cheeks while an entire Old Stage was on its feet, applauding the dancers. I also (happily) noticed that besides Watson and Chmelensky, Stephenie Chen Gundorph was the one to receive the loudest praise.

All in all, my revisit with Balanchine’s Nutcracker was successful, because the RDB was able to make it so. Their dancers have come a long way over the past couple of years and I am proud of everything that Hübbe has been able to coax out of his company when he can make even a sceptic like me love a rather flat production like Balanchine’s Nutcracker, despite all her stubborn reservations.

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