The Royal Ballet
THE NUTCRACKER
[Captured live December 2023]
Running time 165 minutes (including one interval)
Discover the enchantment of ballet with this sparkling festive treat for the whole family
A young girl’s enchanted present leads her on a wonderful Christmas adventure in this beautiful classical ballet, danced to Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score.
The young Clara creeps downstairs on Christmas Eve to play with her favourite present – a Nutcracker doll. But the mysterious magician Drosselmeyer is waiting to sweep her off on a magical adventure. After defeating the Mouse King, the Nutcracker and Clara travel through the Land of Snow to the Kingdom of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy treats them to a wonderful display of dances.
Back home, Clara thinks she must have been dreaming – but doesn’t she recognize Drosselmeyer’s nephew?
Peter Wright’s nigh-on definitive production for The Royal Ballet ranks as one of the most enduring and enchanting versions of The Nutcracker.
With its festive period setting, dancing snowflakes and enchanting stage magic, Lev Ivanov’s 1892 ballet has become the perfect Christmas entertainment, with Tchaikovsky’s sumptuous, sugar-spun music the most recognizable of all ballet scores.
Loosely based on the story by E.T.A.Hoffmann, the ballet opens with a lively Christmas party, its Victorian setting captured in opulent detail by Julia Trevelyan Oman’s designs. Wright’s choreography ingeniously incorporates surviving fragments of the ballet’s original material, including the sublime pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince. But in emphasizing the relationship between Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, the production also gains a touching subtext of first love.
Tickets £17 and £11 for under 18.
Licensed bar (card or cash), with wine, beer, soft drinks, tea and coffee, run by the VHC.
Cast:
THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY Anna Rose O'Sullivan
THE PRINCE Marcelino Sambé
HERR DROSSELMEYER Thomas Whitehead
CLARA Sophie Allnatt
HANS-PETER/THE NUTCRACKER Leo Dixon
Creatives:
CHOREOGRAPHY Peter Wright after Lev Ivanov
MUSIC Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
SCENARIO Marius Petipa after E.T.A. Hoffmann
PRODUCTION AND SCENARIO Peter Wright
DESIGNER Julia Trevelyan Oman
LIGHTING DESIGNER Mark Henderson
PRODUCTION CONSULTANT Roland John Wiley
