|
Back
Nureyev’s Retelling of Hoffmann’s Tale Milano
Teatro alla Scala
12/18/2024 - & December 20, 29, 31, 2024, January 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12*, 2025
The Nutcracker
Rudolf Nureyev (choreography), Aleth Francillon (reprised choreography), Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (music)
Corpo di ballo del Teatro alla Scala, Manuel Legris (artistic director)
Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Valery Ovsyanikov (conductor)
Nicholas Georgiades (sets & costumes), Andrea Giretti (lights)
(© Brescia e Amisano/Teatro alla Scala)
German writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1766‑1822) is widely considered to be the originator of the literary genres now known as science fiction and horror. His influence on literature and on culture in general cannot be underestimated. Offenbach’s opera Les Contes d’Hoffmann uses three of his works: Der Sandmann (1816); Rath Krespel (Councillor Krespel or the Cremona Violin, 1818); and Das verlorene Spiegelbild (The Lost Reflection, 1814) as the basis for its three acts, with Hoffmann as protagonist.
Hoffman’s influence was pervasive: Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker is based on his Nussknacker und Mausekönig (1816); Delibes’ ballet Coppélia is based on Der Sandmann; Schumann’s Kreisleriana (1838) is based on three Hoffmann tales; and the supernatural elements in Ingmar Bergman’s film Fanny and Alexander (1982) derive from various Hoffman stories. His short story Vampirismus (1819) preceded Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) by almost eighty years.
Hoffmann’s Nussknacker und Mausekönig was adapted by Alexandre Dumas père as Histoire d’un casse‑noisette (1844) and it is this adaptation that serves as the storyline for Tchaikovsky’s enduring ballet. It’s hard to believe this work, lasting two hours, was just half of a double bill when it premiered in 1892. The other half was the opera Iolanta, a fable about a blind princess, but not in the supernatural genre.
The Nutcracker is the third of Tchaikovsky’s three great ballets, premiering two years after Sleeping Beauty (1890) and fifteen after Swan Lake (1877). Given its seasonal appeal as the world’s most‑performed ballet, involving a large contingent of child performers, it perennially attracts families and friends of the young dancers. Milan is no different from other cities; a large proportion of the audience was composed of young people, some attending their first Nutcracker and likely their first ballet performance. Others were young dancers cheering friends and admiring their chosen art form.
The ballet opens to a rowdy scene with children in front of a stately house. It’s at once realistic and positively Dickensian. The setting is the family home of the Stahlbaum family, who are hosting a Christmas party. Their children, Clara and Fritz, receive copious gifts from the guests. Most enticing are those from the children’s godfather Drosselmeyer, a toy maker and magician. Fritz breaks one of the gifts, a nutcracker, and the toymaker promptly fixes it.
This production, choreographed by the late legendary Rudolf Nureyev, is darker than most. He first choreographed it in 1968 for The Stockholm Royal Ballet (and subsequently for La Scala in 1969), shortly after defecting from the Soviet Union. He may have drawn inspiration from his own predicament as an exile, longing for family and homeland.
The character of Drosselmeyer is much darker than usual and more evocative of Hoffmann’s macabre imagination than the usual avuncular and elderly toymaker. This emphasis on Drosselmeyer’s frightening side, prominent in Hoffmann’s original tale but less so in Dumas’s adaptation, is fascinating. In Nureyev’s hands, Drosselmeyer astonishingly transforms into Prince Charming. This is somewhat unsettling for present‑day audiences, as it may be interpreted as paedophilic. The fact that Nureyev danced both the Prince and the magician may explain his choosing the same dancer to perform both roles. It also explains Drosselmeyer’s confident bravura in this production, for Nureyev certainly had all that.
His addition of Drosselmeyer’s puppet show was an innovative one. It featured a Prince, a Princess and the Mouse King. The marionettes are manoeuvred so brilliantly that they suggest magic, à la Docteur Miracle in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. The puppets seemingly inspire Clara’s subsequent dream.
When Clara falls asleep, we’re transported into a fantasy. The transition to this dream world is indicated by a Christmas tree in the centre of the Stahlbaum home, which soon grows to a huge size. The nutcracker transforms into a Prince, who fights the Mouse King. Fritz’s toy soldiers then morph into the Prince’s army, to combat the Mouse King’s army. In Nureyev’s setting, Prince Charming vanquishes the Mouse King, and oddly enough the latter returns in the second act. This twist perhaps alludes to the perpetual battle between Good and Evil.
In Act II, Clara and the Prince are transported to the Land of Sweets, where we enjoy the various delights through dances from their land of origin: danse espagnole for chocolate (via the Americas), danse arabe for coffee, and danse chinoise for tea. Often danced by just one couple, this production’s danse espagnole featured four couples, which had an impressive visual effect. Nureyev’s choreography of the danse arabe is the most original and provocative I’ve ever seen. Usually, it’s performed by either one woman, or sometimes several. But here it was performed by four women and a male companion, as well as two additional dancers. The setting was evocative of The Arabian Nights: the man, possibly a magician, held a tray from which he distributed some kind of ambrosia that kept the women (likely his concubines) glued to him. The additional couple seemed to be a fifth concubine and her lover. At the end of the dance, the couple breaks free of the magician, making a gesture to signify “good riddance.”
The amusing danse chinoise, most often performed by young girls to emphasize “cuteness,” was danced by three young men. Unusual for the sixties, it avoided caricature or excess saccharine. Of these folklore-inspired danses de caractère, the most extravagant was predictably the danse russe, also known as Trepak, inspired by Russian folklore. Instead of elegant stylized dances, Nureyev opted for humorously grotesque moves, caricaturing the overly virile Cossack men and earthy women. In a further twist, the dances are not performed specifically for Clara, who is usually seated on stage admiring the diversions. The purpose may be to indicate that we are inside Clara’s mind.
Indeed, Nureyev sees much of the ballet from Clara’s perspective. At the beginning of the ballet, she’s a child reveling in the Christmas fanfare. Drosselmeyer’s gift is his instrument of helping Clara transition to young adulthood.
In addition to the usual divertissements, Nureyev introduces a brilliant dance with bats that is unique to his setting of the ballet. The elegant valse des fleurs is given a majestic baroque setting à la Rameau, with the dancers in gold costumes and white wigs, without flowers.
The most enchanting part of the ballet is the pas de deux in Act II, gloriously interpreted by Nicola Del Freo and Virna Toppi. As this is Nureyev’s choreography and as he often danced that part, the Nutcracker/Prince Charming’s moves are demanding and, if well‑executed, the overall effect is dazzling.
La Scala is indeed fortunate to be the guardian of several of Nureyev’s sublime choreographies, which include the recently revived production of La Bayadère.
The magic of this performance was enhanced by the attentive conducting of Valery Ovsyanikov. Even for those indifferent to ballet as an art form, this performance would have been a delight: a first‑rate orchestra performing a Tchaikovsky masterwork. The Russian conductor led La Scala’s forces with brio, and the public’s appreciation was apparent by their profusive applause.
Whether a child or a child at heart, there’s no better way to appreciate the Christmas spirit than to attend a performance of The Nutcracker. If it’s at La Scala and with Nureyev’s magnificent interpretation, it’s truly glorious.
Ossama el Naggar
|
