I'm afraid I don't have any favourable view either. I had a chance to catch only four performances. The highlight of the Festival was no doubt the premiere of the Nutcracker. Alexei Ratmansky was first assigned to stage this new production, but unfortunately his ideas did not get along well with Mikhail Shemyakin, who dominated all the work. With an attempt to revive the spirit of Hoffmann, Shemyakin wanted to liberate from 'saccharine sentimentality' which, as he said, is common in most other productions. He aims to present modern child psychology rather than nostalgia for romantic era ballet. But his approach, I'm afraid, is not in tune with the music and the result is not what he tried hard to acheive. The whole ballet is too symbolic for many children, and perhaps for some adults, to understand its metaphors. This surrealistic and eccentric version is not what i expected to see. I booked a ticket with some hopes that the new production would preserve some classical splendor of the original ballet and be more spectacular than the old version which received bad reviews from the critics in london back in 1996 for its poor choreography and too pinkish design.
In this new production Masha is played by one dancer. there is no transformation into a ballerina. Natalia Sologub was very musical. her masha was a playful and passionate girl who is an unloved child. The choreography, I think, is an interesting mix of modern and classical styles. The Nutcracker, danced by the choreographer himself--Kirill Simonov, is not a wooden toy anymore. The ballet focuses on this 'humanised' Nutcracker, but strangely his role was not outstanding enough.
I found the opening scene quite a horror, full with bizarre elements such as sausage-people, a human soup tureen, a boar's head, and a captured 'Fly-Person' trapped in the cage. The villains are rats also first introduced in this scene. I was unable to distinguish between the Nutcracker and the rats. Both were under weird masks with very long protruding noses that looked more like mosquitoes. Drosselmeyer danced by Anton Adasinsky was no where in the leaque of avuncular magicians. He is ghostly and perhaps has some kind of neurosis. The Counselor's reception hall where the party took place lacked festive atmosphere. It looked like a slaughterhouse with several stuffed animal heads. the transformation scene had nothing to do with enlarging the Christmas tree. There was only an image of a ball with Nutcracker's face on it and it got bigger after each toss. the Battle scene in the rat Kingdom was a mess, another disappointment.
However, when it came to the scene of the Snowstorm, the most and only convincing part, I decided to ignore all terrible things I saw earlier. Snowflakes in this production were represented as malevolent nature, not anymore a mercifil poetic pause on the way to the kingdom of sweet. The background was designed in dark tones with silhouette of bare trees, quite spooky but striking. The corps, dressed in black with white snowflakes sewn and painted all over, and Daria Pavlenko as the Queen, dressed in white with black snowflakes, danced briliantly in such an arousing tempo conducted by Valery gergiev. the performance was indeed the fireworks.
However, the second act left me completely cold again. The dancing was not allowed to stand out from a very very bright and colourful backdrop of the kingdom of sweet. I felt as if I was seeing a musical play in West End theatre or a matinee show in Disneyland, not a classical ballet from one of the best companies in the world. All in all, pink is still the kirov's favourite colour.
Too bad that in the Divertissements Chinese dance was scrapped. Then we have Spanish Dance, Petrouchkas, Bees Pas de trois, Mother Gigogne and the Pulchinelli, and Eastern Dance (Arabian Dance) in which Pavlanko was dazzling in a seductive glittering green costume.
Again, the corps danced beautifully in Waltz of the Flowers. But with that dull and shabby costumes, the Flowers seemed to wilt and their fragrance gone.
In the grand pdd, Andrian Fedeev did his best as the prince but it's pity that his role is incredibly small and his solo is very short. The Sugar Plum Fairy in this production is only an onlooker.
In the Finale the Prince and Masha stand atop a huge wedding cake decorated with candies and flowers. Most of the audience seemed to be very impressed, counting from numerous curtain calls. But I left the theatre with only the scene of Snowflakes stamped on my mind.
Other three performances I saw were a great delight and more impressive than the Nutcracker.