Christmas time is rapidly rolling around, which means that it is also time for the shops to bring out all their Christmas desecrations (well, there are only 2 months to go) and for the pantomimes and ballet companies to get their offerings for the season ready. And it was to the traditional ballet presentation associated with this time of year, The Nutcracker Suite, as interpreted by the Royal New Zealand Ballet, that I began my countdown to Christmas.
I was a little worried going in to the St James, it has to be said. While an incredible dinner at Le Metropolitain had calmed most of my concerns about the ballet, there were still the odd nagging sensations that nipped at my heels, warning me that the ballet may be as boring as non stop tap dancing, But I was able to kick those pesky little pests to the curb, and entered the St James unhindered.
There was no tedious waiting around, as we had arrived about 10 minutes before the show got underway. The 6.30pm session was attended by a broad spectrum of Wellington society: from proud parents with budding ballerinas, to a line of young ladies who looked liked they would hit the town hard after the show, to a few burly looking guys who had either had psychic visions of the fate that would befall the All Blacks battling the Australians in Hong Kong or else found that all their manly strength was nothing compared with the might of a partner’s steely will (or else they just liked the ballet), to the more “expected” grannies and daughters and women eager to see a good show performed well.
The lights went down, and the music flared up. It took a while for the audience to settle, with conversations finished at a leisurely pace, and people all checking their mobile phones as requested and turning them off, or at least setting them to vibrate. The overture seemed to take a long time, but finally the curtain went up and the dancing to the music began.
And it was all spectacular. Sure, the mugging to the audience was ridiculous, some of the moves barely gelled with the sense of the moment or the storyline, and the sequence leading up to the toys coming alive seemed to drag on for an eternity, but there is no denying the grace and power of the dancers. Walking around on tip toe for twenty minutes would never make it into a Powerade commerical, but something tells me the All Blacks would need more than a electrolyte-charged bottle of scented water and a black bottle of Rexona antiperspirant to make it through that kind of physical exertion with any dignity.
The comic transvestite drew pantomime level laughs, but the show was really all about the power and grace of ballet, all set to Tchaikovksy’s magnificent music. I visited the musical genius’s grave when I was in St Petersburg, and from afar I thanked him again for some of the most recognised pieces of classical music. It therefore should not have come as a surprise when the solo performances to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the other recognisable tunes (which I can recognise but, for the life of me, not name right at this moment) could not really live up to the grace of the music, restricted as the dancers were by the limited vocabulary of the dance form. Still, they put on a fantastic show, though for me the real joy in their performances came in the bigger ensemble dance pieces, with the men and women of the corps prancing all over the stage and missing bumping into each other by the narrowest of margins.
I was informed later that evening that the story itself was “tweaked” a bit, the setting changed to a hospital and there were no dancing teddy bears or jack in the boxes, but had I not been told, I would not have known. It may explain why some bits seemed a bit duller than others, but then, as I know so little about the ballet, I may have mistaken the “real” parts as those not in the traditional version.
Come the final curtain (which came far more quickly than I had expected), I felt my normally reserved kind of applause and adoration did not really give enough back to the performance I had just witnessed. But then, there were one or two things that had dampened my spirits – mainly some of my fellow ballet attendees.
Right, a new taxonomy here: annoying people to sit in theatres with:
1) Lookatmoylookatmoylookatmoy-ers
The main problem for the lookatmoi-ers is that, in the darkness of the theatre, looking at them becomes very hard. Solution: get loud instead,a nd by “get loud”, I mean laugh like the only one who gets the humour and comment like nobody else could see the show.
2) The Rustlers
Okay, now this is something that could be fixed by the venue being a bit more creative and discriminating with what they sell, but there are some people in the world who cannot for the life of them open a plastic bag in anything less than 10 minutes, and have to rummage around said bag – noisily – for the next half hour while they slowly devour whatsoever the bag contains. It is incredibly annoying, and part of the reason I do not tend to take consumables in with me.
3) The Bigheads
Again, something the proprietors of an establishment could address, but there are certain people who are tall, or have hairdos in the style of Marge Simpson, and for people behind them, this can be damned annoying. These are closely related to…
4) The StevieWonders
Some people look with their necks, their pupils staying firmly in the middle of their eye sockets, leaving the neck muscles in charge of following what is going on at the front of the room. A Bighead/SteveiWonder is therefore one of the most irritating things to have in front of you – unless you aren’t really enjoying the show at all.
Verdict: The Royal NZ Ballet put on a brilliant performance, though, at the end of the day, the score beat the dancers. All credit to both sides though as, as a whole, it was a brilliant event. Not to say that I am now converted and will attend every ballet out there, but it definitely did not put me off. 9 tiaras out of 10.
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