Last Updated on December 31, 2025
Once More with Feeling!
4.5 out of 5.0 starsMost versions of The Nutcracker ballet aim to create magic. It is, after all, a ballet about the transformative power of dreams and imagination, prompted by a mysterious magician figure and set to a Tchaikovsky score that is itself musical magic. So it was with all four Nutcrackers I saw in London this festive season, from The Royal Ballet’s majestic production, through the slimmed down version crafted by Valentino Zucchetti for the small-scale New English Ballet Theatre, not forgetting the new kid on the block, English National Ballet’s gleaming Nutcracker, which had its very first outing last year – long may it live.
However, for true magic, none can best the way in which Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker transforms the Royal Albert Hall’s unwieldy, cavernous, proscenium-free space into a dreamy, immersive wintry landscape, thanks to an inspired series of projections by 59 Productions. Drenching the backdrop and sides of the stage with colour and imagery, it creates warm, homely interiors, then a giant Christmas tree that gives way to chilly, starlit skies and a forest of naked trees, their branches covered in glittering ice crystals, as Clara and her Nutcracker embark on their dream journey. Not forgetting, of course, the soft snowflakes that fall silently on stage and audience at the end of Act I, even while human snowflakes in pristine white whirl around the stage with perfect coordination.
BRB’s The Nutcracker traditionally arrives in London last, for a short, concentrated post-Christmas run of performances; but sold-out houses attest to its popularity, as well as, I think, to the incontrovertible fact that you can never have too many Nutcrackers. I know I can’t, and although very familiar with BRB’s The Nutcracker, I made my way to the RAH with a sense of anticipation. I can happily report I was not disappointed.
Like The Nutcracker from the Royal Ballet, BRB’s The Nutcracker is a production by Sir Peter Wright, a master of glorious theatricality. It has much in common with the former, but goes its own way in important respects. For the benefit of younger children, it has short bursts of voice-over narrative by the actor Simon Callow with his best cod-German accent. His is the voice of ballet’s lynchpin, Drosselmeyer, here a doll-maker who prefers to refer to his creations as “automata”.
In such a concentrated three-day run, casts for each day’s two performances vary; “my” Drosselmeyer was August Generalli, supremely elegant in his beautifully cut frock coat, owning the stage with easy authority.
The first scene, the Christmas Eve party at Clara’s home, sticks to the script, and Clara, the fresh-faced, lovely dancer Rosanna Ely, is duly given her nutcracker doll. Here, though, intimations of what’s to come arrive when large, furry mechanical rats scurry across the stage. The key battle between a large army of rodents led by the fierce King Rat and the Nutcracker’s soldiers is heated, a lot more nightmarish and scarier than all the others. Whether that’s what prompted a loud wail from a tot at the back of the stalls, I’ve no idea, but I, too, felt the power of this brilliant scene.
In BRB’s version, the Nutcracker doll turns into the Prince who flies Clara to his own Kingdom of Dolls, where he abandons Clara to turn into the Sugar Plum Fairy’s own Prince, in the pas de deux that marks the culmination of Act II (more on that in a moment). He was danced by principal Tzu-Chao Chou, always a precise dancer and good partner, but I have to say I have seen him dance better before.
All the divertissements in Act II are performed by Drosselmeyer’s animated automata, and all of them work absolutely. There is more than a whiff of the seraglio about an Arabian dance mercifully unbothered by recent sensitivities, where three shaved head men in harem pants (eunuchs, surely) partner the slinky, sexy concubine Eilis Small; the Spanish dance for two men and a woman is convincingly Spanish; the Russian bursts with virtuoso energy; Amelia Thompson’s Rose Fairy led the Waltz of the Flowers with assurance and vitality. John MacFarlane’s wonderful costumes enhance every scene.
The best was still to come.
The Sugar Plum Fairy pas de deux is the emblematic pinnacle of The Nutcracker – a technically fiendish piece (in Lev Ivanov’s original choreography), it is nevertheless supposed to look as easy and airy as spun sugar. In this performance, BRB’s Italian principal Beatrice Parma (not pictured) offered a Sugar Plum Fairy to die for. Her intense musicality, use of creamy legato, absolute control, easy turns and floating arms, all topped by a soft smile and regal bearing, held the audience rapt and earned the biggest applause of the show.
The Royal Ballet Sinfonia, perched on a ledge above the stage, gave a spirited reading of Tchaikovsky’s score under Paul Murphy’s baton.
Birmingham Royal Ballet The Nutcracker is at the Royal Albert Hall from 29th to 31st December 2025
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore
London SW7 2AP
Missed this one? The Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker runs until 5th January 2026
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