Monday, November 27

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A review of Boston Ballet's Nutcracker by Jeffrey Gantz in The Boston Globe.

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Friday’s opening night saw a number of returnees from last year. Company principal Chisako Oga has played Clara the past three years now, and though I miss the days when Boston Ballet School students had the role, there’s no faulting Oga’s airy jetés, or the way she embraces the nutcracker as if it were a first boyfriend. John Lam has always been one of the company’s best Drosselmeiers, mischievous with the adults but totally at ease with the children. Lawrence Rines Munro and Daniela Fabelo were back as the gallivanting Harlequin and the clockwork Ballerina Doll, and so were a lovable Madysen Felber and Daniel Cooper as the ditzy grandparents who, bored with the stately, evening-ending “Grandfather Dance,” break into a zippy polka that sends them spiraling off in opposite directions.

 

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A review of the Australian Ballet by Ilona Landgraf in her blog, "Landgraf on Dance."

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The last new program of the Australian Ballet’s 60th anniversary season was an all-in-one package. Its two Ashton ballets – “Marguerite and Armand” (1963) and “The Dream” (1964) – showcased the dancers’ prowess and satisfied the audience’s appetite for both the tragic and the comic while at the same time celebrating the company’s historic connection to the Royal Ballet. This connection has been of the most pleasant nature as became evident in the interview that the livestream’s presenter, Catherine Murphy, and the artistic director, David Hallberg, conducted with Berry Wordsworth. Wordsworth, the Royal Ballet’s former music director, joined the Opera Australia Orchestra to conduct the Ashton program. As he recalled Ashton’s creative passion and the friendship between Peggy van Praagh, the Australian Ballet’s founder, and her London counterpart, the Royal Ballet’s Dame Ninette de Valois, one could sense that the buoyant spirit of the good old days is still vibrant. Furthermore, warmth and good humor dominated the add-on program and included additional backstage interviews and videos.

 

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Reviews of the Royal Ballet.

The Arts Desk

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So long as you accept that the interpretation by choreographer Wayne McGregor, composer Thomas Adès and artist Tacita Dean of hell, purgatory and heaven isn’t always contingent with Dante’s and Virgil's descent through the ever-narrowing circles of the damned, up the magic mountain of Purgatory to the garden where Beatrice awaits, and then on in a rare celestial flight, you’ll go with the surprising creative takes involved, at least in the first two parts.

The Financial Times

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Bracewell had been cast against type in Don Quixote — Basilio’s bravura tricks are not really in his line — but his teasing développés and sudden decelerations created their own kind of thrill. He was an attentive and affectionate partner for the electrifying Fumi Kaneko. The pair are reunited in The Dante Project, but their chemistry feels underexploited and Kaneko’s Beatrice gets only one heartbreaking duet with her devoted poet.

Bachtrack

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The impression I had first time around has not altered much and whilst one appreciates the monumental task that lay ahead of him from the outset, it’s fair to say that what transpires on stage, although not disappointing, it just doesn’t quite do what it says on the tin. The major plusses are Thomas Adès' richly textured score (his first for dance), Tacita Dean's sets and costumes (also her first for dance), Lucy Carter's and Simon Bennison's lighting and the input from dramaturg Uzma Hameed.

 

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Maine State Ballet presents its Nutcracker.

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The Maine State Ballet is back on stage in Portland to again brilliantly light up the start of the holiday season with a production of “The Nutcracker.” The ballet’s enchanting mixture of art and entertainment always goes over well and a multi-generational Saturday afternoon crowd at Merrill Auditorium appeared to be all-in on its many wonders.