The National Ballet of Canada / The Nutcracker, choreography and libretto by James Kudelka, music by P.I. Tchaikovsky, Four Seasons Centre, closes Dec. 31. Tickets here.
After 29 years, I’ve seen James Kudelka’s Nutcracker so many times, I could probably dance it (a sight no one would ever want to see). Nonetheless, it is an enduring testament to his choreographic genius that the work remains as fresh and entertaining as it is.
The Main Characters
Kudelka set the ballet in the Russia of Tchaikovsky’s own time, and Santo Loquasto’s magnificent sets and costumes never look dated due to their sheer opulence.
The choreographer also made other changes.
He created two battling siblings, Marie (Héloïse Halbe-Kains) and Misha (Eamon Currie), who, as the ballet progresses, learn to get along and help others. I have to say that these two youngsters from Canada’s National Ballet School poured everything into their roles. Their fights were real, and they were a delight to watch.
Kudelka’s hero is Peter (Christopher Gerty), the stable boy/Nutcracker Prince who is a friend of the lonely children in place of their distant parents. The children also have a loving nurse Baba (warmly played by Stephanie Hutchison). It is these four who travel to the Land of Snow and the realm of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Then there is Uncle Nikolai (Ben Rudisin) who provides the magic.
When I interviewed Kudelka way back in 1995, before The Nutcracker’s premiere, he told me that Peter’s choreography was going to contain mannerisms of the original Peter, the beloved Rex Harrington, and all these years later, you can see Harrington in the steps. It’s quite magical.
I’ve long championed Gerty, and he did not disappoint as Peter. There is an ease of technique about his dancing, and he fills the space because there is nothing tentative about his physicality. Every movement seems finished and perfectly executed. There is a graceful yet manly bearing about his stage presence, and he is also a very good actor. His warmth towards the children radiated off the stage.
As expected, Heather Ogden was a stately, even majestic, Sugar Plum Fairy. Kudelka gave her a convoluted solo full of strange turns and intricate footwork moving in all directions which Ogden never rushed or pushed. Her character is one who is aloof from her court, emerging occasionally from her fabulous Faberge egg, and Ogden captured that mystique. She was royalty indeed.
Uncle Nikolai is a spinner and turner and jumper, and Rudisin nailed the role. He was a whirligig of movement, achieving great height as he whipped his body around. He gave excitement to the role in a very impressive performance.
Another change Kudelka made was to turn the Snow Queen solo into a pas de trois. Thus, we have the Snow Queen (Genevieve Penn Nabity) and her two Icicles (Larkin Miller and Shaakir Muhammad). This scene never fails to astonish with its challenging technique and terrifying partnering, particularly when the men carry the Queen off stage, and she is literally upside down. These three dancers are all notable classicists and tossed off the dense choreography as if it were easy.
Only Kudelka would have done this, but he added in a Bee (Hannah Galway) to the famous Waltz of the Flowers, who darts in, out and all around the ensemble, and is mostly in the air, propelled by lightning-fast choreography. Galway, another fine classical technician, pulled of this taxing role with aplomb, and like a perpetual motion machine, she never stopped.
What follows are my musings about this performance of Kudelka’s Nutcracker…
My really big takeaway from this viewing is just how more technically adept dancers today are from the original 1995 cast. This is a well-known fact in the ballet world — that schools are producing whiz kids with incredible prowess.
Kudelka’s choreography is never easy. He has the reputation of packing in more steps to the bar than most other dancesmiths, but this time, the vim and vigour of the National dancers made the demands of the choreography stand out.
Take for example, the Sheep (Brenna Flaherty)/Fox (Noah Parets) divertissement in the second act. She’s dainty and he jumps around, and the little sheep are cute, I’ve always thought.
This time, the dancing made me sit up and take notice. Parets performed with such forceful energy and achieved such height in his jumps that it was like choreography transformed. Similarly, Flaherty’s on the spot footwork and the gentle movement of the closed fists held tightly to the body, accompanied by exact head movements highlighted the control needed to perform the Sheep’s role.
It was like this all the way through the evening. I kept seeing things refreshed.
Children of all ages have a lot to do in this Nutcracker. They attend the first act Christmas party, they are dogs, cats and mice in the bedroom scene, they are unicorns in the Land of Snow, and courtiers, chefs and sheep in the Sugar Plum act. I’m guessing there is no other version that uses so many children. In the old production, if you were too tall or too small, you couldn’t perform. The great (and tall) Karen Kain never was a Nutcracker child.
The Land of Snow corps de ballet Snow Maidens is one of the most complicated in terms of patterning. I can never get over how dangerous it is, and therefore, how stunning the result. If one of those dancers makes one wrong move, it would be total chaos.
I absolutely adore what Kudelka did to the Arabian divertissement. Instead of one woman and two men, he has two couples who mirror each other exactly and Isabella Kinch, Oliver Yonick, Alexandra MacDonald and Peng-Fei Jiang were absolutely gorgeous.
What Kudelka did with the Waltz of the Flowers is very creative. Instead of a standard corps de ballet, he has three groups of flowers coming and going, along with the Bee, noted above, making the choreography exciting. There is a real build of drama in the music, thanks to conductor David Briskin and the orchestra, which matches the combining together of all the forces in a grand finale.
Here’s a plea to the National. Could you kindly list the names of the three servants in the program who appear in the first act. They are quite involved in the goings on. If you are listing the Goat and the Rooster, list the servants as well.
And if I have one small complaint about this production, it is that the Christmas tree never rises tall enough. It builds out sideways, but never goes up to the stratosphere. I really miss that.
Final Thoughts
I wasn’t going to do this, but I can’t help myself. James Kudelka’s Nutcracker is the best on the planet.
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