The Nutcracker
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
Year after year The Nutcracker captivates with its suspension of disbelief: a child named Clara receives a present of a wooden doll that comes to life, in a home where a Christmas tree transmogrifies and toy soldiers fight overgrown mice. Then, in a dreamlike land of sweets, Clara encounters dancing confections while surrounded by towers of saccharine treats.
Infinite variations of this ballet’s throughline exist, and interpretations depend largely on which company performs it. The State Ballet of Georgia’s Nutcracker remains tethered to the original narrative while taking audiences on a journey more whimsical and fantastical than most.
The choreographer Alexey Fadeechev and the company’s artistic director, Nina Ananiashvili, created this Nutcracker with a particularly Georgian flair. The curtain opens to reveal a colourful scrim by the set designer David Popiashvili, a Georgian artist whose delightful, wide-eyed characters evoke a mood that is, refreshingly, neither cheery nor menacing.
Instead of being lulled into an Edwardian drawingroom we are then transported to the heart of Tbilisi, where a snowball fight brings children together outside the Dadiani family home.
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Once inside, the ballet’s first act dispenses with much of the overwrought toasting and present-opening seen in so many European and American Nutcrackers, proceeding instead to the Nutcracker doll (Kaito Hosoya) transforming and dancing with Clara (or Barbare, in this version, performed by Nino Khakhatashvili).
Fadeechev and Ananiashvili pare back the group dances in act one, instead letting the characters from the Kingdom of Sweets spill out from beneath the anthropomorphic tree in an innovative interpretation of the score. They also allow the Nutcracker and Barbare’s partnership to develop until they are transported to the Kingdom of Sweets by a preposterous, droll ladybird.
At the beginning of act two, the pantomime lingers longer than it could. When the Nutcracker and Barbare recount their journey while standing behind a scrim, the action feels flat. In contrast, the Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian and French variations deliver their compelling mixes of lighthearted movement. These characters reappear during Waltz of the Flowers, an unusual, welcome addition to the group.
Here the corps de ballet is at its best, unlike during the snow scene, when the snowflakes seem slightly disoriented.
The icing on this confection appears in the form of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her prince (Nino Samadashvili and Filippo Montanari). They elevate the production with their pas de deux, marked by a sparkling clarity and economy of movement. Shimmering from the moment they appear, they perform sweeping lifts and quick enchainments, maintaining a constant radiance.
Samadashvili’s crystalline footwork and poised upper body evoke the same Russian ballet tradition that once made this company’s artistic director a star. Glimmers of that legacy appear like flashes in the dancers’ ranks.
The ballet crescendoes in the couple’s pas de deux, the pinnacle of this Tchaikovsky score. Conducted by Levan Jagaev, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra accompanies the dancers with energy and precision throughout the evening
The Nutcracker is at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, until Saturday, November 15th
