Monthly Archive: December 2024

Lucky He

December 31, 2024

“A Christmas Carol”
Finnish National Ballet
Opera House
Helsinki, Finland
December 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

1. J.Xia (Fred) and J.Pakkanen (Scrooge), “A Christmas Carol” by D.Bintley, Finnish National Ballet 2023 © R.Oksaharju Last Christmas, I missed the Finnish National Ballet’s new A Christmas Carol on arte.tv. Luckily, the channel rescheduled the recording for this December. David Bintley, the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s former director, choreographed the two-act production and was the first to adapt Charles Dickens’s novella about the chronically ill-tempered miser, Scrooge, for the ballet stage.

In Act I, Bintley introduces the old merchant, Scrooge (Johan Pakkanen), who hates people in general and Christmas in particular, along with his antitheses, Fred (Jun Xia) and Bob Cratchit (Frans Valkama). Both are family men but represent different social classes. Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, is well-off and in the most buoyant of Christmas moods when he invites his uncle for Christmas (he’s, of course, immediately rebuffed). Bob, Scrooge’s conscientious but underpaid clerk, feeds his family of six on a limited budget. He, too, is happy and generous by nature but worries about the serious illness of his youngest son, Tiny Tim (Janne Kouhia). (more…)

A Treat

December 24, 2024

“Don Quixote” (1973 film)
The Australian Ballet
Melbourne, Australia
December 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

A couple of days ago, medici.tv re-released Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote as part of its Christmas ballet program. Although fifty-two years old, the film is hot. Nureyev adapted it from his 1970 stage production for the Australian Ballet and co-directed it with Robert Helpmann (then artistic director of the Australian Ballet). Both starred in leading roles—Helpmann as the Don, and Nureyev as Basilio—alongside dancers of the Australian Ballet.
Nureyev was a notorious daredevil, but the fireworks that his steps set off from the moment he reached Barcelona’s port (set design by Barry Kay) until he finally married Kitri (Lucette Aldous) were beyond imagination.

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Comforting

December 18, 2024

“The Nutcracker”
The Australian Ballet
Sydney Opera House/Joan Sutherland Theatre
Sydney, Australia
December 12, 2024 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

1. C.Linnane (Drosselmeyer) and ensemble, “The Nutcracker” by P.Wright, The Australian Ballet 2024 © D.Boud This year, getting in a happy Christmas mood isn’t easy in my home country, Germany. We’re in troubled waters, and prospects for the new year are dismal. Even our major ballet stages abandoned a festive program. The State Ballet Berlin scheduled Christian Spuck’s Bovary and Swan Lake for the holiday season; the Bavarian State Ballet is presenting a mixed bill (Duato/Skeels/Eyal) and Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. At least audiences in Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Dresden can attend performances of The Nutcracker, but Stuttgart’s rendering is screwed up, and Dresden’s is saccharine. The bright spot is Hamburg Ballet, which kept Neumeier’s much-lauded version in its repertory.

The Australian Ballet’s live stream of The Nutcracker was therefore a welcome addition, especially as the company presented Peter Wright’s traditional version, which was staged for the Royal Ballet in 1984 and later adapted for Birmingham Royal Ballet. (more…)