BALLET-FÉERIE BY GIORGIO MADIA
MUSIC BY PETER I. TCHAIKOVSKY
CHOREOGRAOHY & STAGE DIRECTION: GIORGIO MADIA
SETS & COSTUMES: DOMENICO FRANCHI
ASSISTANT TO THE CHOREOGRAPHER: DUILIO INGRAFFIA, DENISE RUDDOCK
CAST Alessandra Armorina (Clara), Stefan Kulhawec (Nutcracker Prince) Alyosa Forlini (Drosselmeyer, the Ballet Master), Mario Barcenilla Rubio (Fritz), Simone Zannini (Father Stahlbaum), Venira Welijan (Mother Stahlbaum), Alessandro Giachetti (Grandfather), Stefanie Krech (Grandmother), Emily Downs (Mouse Queen), Andrea Masotti (Ballerina), Ema Beatriz Frois do Amaral, Fuyumi Hamashima, Carlotta Pini, Rachele Rossi (Four Friends), Kate Farley, Nyla Tollasepp (Maids) Christoph Schedler (Servant)and Battle of the Mice and Soldiers, Dance of the Snow Flakes, Ballerina: Emily Downs, Kate Farley, Ema Beatriz Frois do Amaral, Alessandro Giachetti, Fuyumi Hamashima, Stefanie Krech, Andrea Masotti, Carlotta Pini, Rachele Rossi, Mario Barcenilla Rubio, Christoph Schedler, Venira Welijan, Simone Zannini
Ballet of the State Theatre Cottbus
World Premiere:
12. November 2022
State Theatre Cottbus
All humans have dreams. Many of these find expression in the magical world of theatre, where they take shape on stage. Fascinated by the toy theatre that ballet master Drosselmeyer brings for the children to the Stahlbaum family’s celebration of Christmas Eve, the girl Clara dreams of becoming a dancer. It’s not just the dancing toy figures –a ballerina, a nutcracker and a mouse king– that come to life in her imagination, it’s almost as if the magic of the little theatre is progressively transforming the whole Christmas world, into a ballet studio and finally to the big stage, on which Clara as a ballerina with her Nutcracker Prince takes centre stage. Did Drosselmeyer stage this ballet-féerie?
With his ballet “The Nutcracker”, Peter I. Tchaikovsky created one of the most famous ballets of all times. His composition is intended to tell the story through the means of dance. The choreographer and stage director Giorgio Madia uses the fact that the ballet’s secret of success lies precisely in the dance element as an opportunity for his interpretation: What could be better told than a story about dancing itself?
REVIEW 1
Frank Schmid, rbb Kultur, 14. November 2022
Although his ballet is like a fairy tale and is also a dream story, it is not a children’s fairy tale magic world in a cotton candy sweet Christmas mood. Here nothing sparkles in Christmas white and red, here the stage, costumes and light shimmer green and purple. There is no snow-covered enchanted forest, no ball at the Zuckerburg with the Super Plum Fairy, no display of splendor in historical garb, as is commonly expected and as was seen in the original reconstruction of the “Nutcracker” at the Berlin State Ballet in 2013, which was discontinued far too early .
Dancing, the ballet itself made the theme
Giorgio Madia has dared a rather radical reinterpretation, in which he makes dancing itself, ballet, the subject: on Christmas night he makes Clara dream of becoming a dancer, a ballerina. The dolls that she received for Christmas, the Nutcracker, the Mouse King and the Ballerina, come to life, Clara can dance with them in her dreams, can experience her first early love with the Nutcracker, can be celebrated as a star ballerina at one of her dreamed “Nutcracker” performance.
The magic of music by Peter Tchaikovsky
This has hardly anything of the usual “Nutcracker” magic, but this reinterpretation works well, because Giorgio Madia tells it completely coherently as a beautiful and funny childish dream. And the magic of Peter Tchaikovsky’s music is indestructible anyway – Waltz of the Flowers, Dance of the Snow Maidens, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – although the glorious music here is taped to an old 1972 recording with the London Symphony Orchestra under André Previn, it is truly magical .
Reinterpretations of the story of the fairy tale
For his new interpretation, Giorgio Madia left out or reinterpreted some of the storyline. More chaos than celebration, Clara’s family’s Christmas dinner is a parody of table etiquette and Christmas festivities. The fight of the mice against the tin soldiers is a funny scurrying around. Snow Queen and Snow King are canceled, as are the character dances in Act II.
And this famous second act, actually a ball at the Sugar Plum Fairy, takes place here in a boring ballet training room complete with ballet barre. Clara first has to train hard on it before she can shine as the star of her dream “Nutcracker” performance because the actual ballerina gets injured.
Decisive reinterpretation – Uncle Drosselmeyer
The reinterpretation of the character of Uncle Drosselmeyer is crucial. Giorgio Madia gives him the magic and demonic of the story of E.T.A. Hoffmann, which is hardly present in the usual ballet version. Alyosa Forlini, already one of the best character actors at the Cottbus Ballet, shines here as a somewhat sinister magician who brings the puppets and the dream world to life. And he shines as a foppish ballet master who dances for his dancers like a vain rooster. Here Giorgio Madia indulges his penchant for the comic – he exaggerates the ballet movements into the grotesque, makes fun of the artist-genius cult and also of himself as a choreographer.
So the character of Drosselmeyer becomes the real star of the evening, while Alessandra Armorina as Clara and Stefan Kulhawec as Nutcracker remain rather woodcut-like.
Choreography tailored to the small Cottbus ballet
All in all, Giorgio Madia has lowered the demands on the level of dance in the scenes that he means seriously, i.e. does not approach them ironically, such as in the waltz of flowers or in the love pas de deux. This has little to do with what one can expect from the big international companies. Above all, he lets them act in pantomime and has tailored this ballet to the abilities of the small Cottbus company. He himself calls it a “chamber version”, 18 dancers take on all the roles, so there are very few ballet students, as is often the case with “Nutcracker” performances.
Entertainment, situational comedy, drolls
As in his previous productions in Cottbus and in his three choreographies for the Berlin State Ballet in the noughties and tens, Giorgio Madia relies on revue-like entertainment, on situational comedy and little silliness, on whimsically imaginative droll things. And it all works well, as he narrates his plot coherently and in complete harmony with Tchaikovsky’s music.
The audience at the premiere in Cottbus was enthusiastic, there was cheering and standing ovations. This “Nutcracker” will make many spectators in Cottbus happy during Advent.
REVIEW II
Volkmar Draeger, tanznetz, 15. November 2022
For a long time now, the ballet classics have no longer been the exclusive privilege of large companies: to the delight of a huge audience, they have also conquered smaller houses, albeit in their own interpretation, adapted to the respective possibilities. The ballet at the Staatstheater Cottbus shows how conclusively this can work. There, division head Dirk Neumann brought in a choreographer who knows all the tricks of the trade for his “Nutcracker” ambition and thus gave his nine-strong ensemble a veritable hit with the public.
Giorgio Madia, who already has an excellent reputation thanks to two filigree productions for the Cottbus company and is also extremely active internationally, retains the personality in his version of the Christmas classic, but entangles it in a slightly different constellation. Clara is a dance trainee here, and Drosselmeyer is her ballet teacher. As presents on Christmas Eve, he gives Fritz a mouse queen and Clara a ballerina, but the miniature doll of the nutcracker magically attracts them. At night the puppets come to life under the direction of Drosselmeyer with his spidery fingers – real on stage or just in Clara’s dream. The family living room becomes a ballet hall in which Clara experiences everyday dancing: hard training, dress rehearsals, time pressure, bitching, injuries. In the end she has to stand in for the performance of the ballet and is allowed to dance in love with her Nutcracker prince. But as already indicated in the original libretto, the spook dissolves: for the time being, Clara only has the view through the intermediate curtain into a theatrical world, which she is now quite sure she definitely wants to enter.
However, nothing happens in this production deadly serious, sublime or classic. Giorgio Madia adds the bulging action with such a light hand, with so much wink, enriches it with so many gags and everyday observations that young viewers in particular should be able to get started without pain. To the music of the overture, the banquet table in the Haus Stahlbaum is busily set, the glasses sparkle, the tablecloth billows, and Fritz dives acrobatically over the table. In the fog, Drosselmeyer scurries to the guests, all of whom dine rhythmically grotesquely to the Nutcracker March. After saying goodbye to the guests, the Stahlbaums cuddle briefly, he lasciviously slaps her on the bottom. The fight between soldiers and mice does not become a close-up slaughter, but takes place stylized at a distance. And the snowflakes, only identified by attributes in terms of costume, remind Clara of the party that has just broken up.
One of the advantages of Giorgio Madia’s lively Cottbus “Nutcracker” for the whole family is that the evening comes without any gaps, it’s nowhere just about the presentation of technical bravura, which children bore anyway. Even Domenico Franchi’s decoration dances along: stage-high pillars with spigots are anchored in the ceiling of the half-circle of the room and can be moved by the actors continuously to create new spatial impressions. It is then also the festival participants, known to Clara, who slip into the role of the foreign wedding guests in the original – all in Giorgio Madia’s own choreography, of course. Brilliant Stefan Kulhawec in the solo Trepak, brilliant after a respectable flower waltz Drosselmeyer Alyosa Forlini’s almost contortionist flexible floor solo to the music of the oriental dance. As here, the choreographer has rearranged some of the score numbers according to his dramaturgy without damaging the work as a whole. In the grand pas de deux he spares the couple the variations, but peppers the duet with plenty of tossing lifts at different heights or behind the neck, almost all boldly jumped in by Alessandra Armorina as Clara, her first major leading role.
Stefan Kulhawec, who has been one of the identification figures of the Cottbus Ballet for a decade from Romeo to Lord Henry in “Dorian Gray” to now the prince, is a reliable partner who knows how to balance out small insecurities. In any case, ballet master Drosselmeyer is enthusiastic about the performance in the performance, gives applause, flowers, kisses before the magic ends. Before that, choreographer Giorgio Madia pulls out all the stops for the bows: to the snappy music of the coda, all 18 participants, who have been augmented by guests, dance past in a colorful parade, twirling red ribbons, as if one were temporarily caught up in an Asian circus dream. One may regret that Tchaikovsky’s music is recorded on tape. The eagerness to play, the physical effort and the dance potential of the Cottbus crew makes their “Nutcracker” a festive gift for curious people from nearby Berlin, where populist intimidation has put a well-loved “Nutcracker” to flight.
REVIEW III
Jürgen Heinrich, Märkischer Bote, 18. November 2022|
No, it just didn’t become a danced Christmas fairy tale. The Italian choreographer Giorgio Madia conjures something different, much more beautiful to Peter I. Tchaikovsky’s wonderful music (in a tape recording from 1972) on the Cottbus stage. It is the slightly creepy and at the same time romantic, moderately ironic fairy tale E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. Advent mood? No, it doesn’t appear there.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, distracts from the great art of classical ballet. Madia dares the classic here with a small company, expanded to 18 dancers, talented young people from all parts of the world and a star from their own ensemble: the Italian Alyosa Forlini, here at the house since 2019/20, is the ballet master strutting like a cock Drosselmeyer, whom Giorgio Madia very mischievously sends into the scene with exaggerated movements that, if there is any, blow away any solemnity from classical ballet. This turned into beautiful, breathtaking art, enhanced with black gloss and extended dancing fingers (stage and costumes Domenico Franchi).
The Russian “Nutcracker”, which premiered 130 years ago in Tsarist St. Petersburg, is preceded by a sense of bright red. That’s completely missing here. Madia feels inspired by subtle music to create the most vivid images. While the entire stage remains immersed in mute green, a pink dinner party lives in the most lively details. The legs still have little to do, the hands, fingers, necks, heads, and eyes all the more to do. Facial expressions and the fast-paced rhythmic sound of the movements parodies strict table manners, against which a child’s dream finally prevails. Clara (Alessandra Armorina) is allowed to dream of being a ballerina, which is why a ballet training room with a pole comes into play (it’s all about dance, after all). As in real life, one person’s bad luck can be another’s chance. The prima ballerina gets injured and Clara is challenged. She falls in love with the Nutcracker Prince, who after the break Stefan Kulhawec, winner of the Grünebaum Prize, does a few acrobatic elements, giving the audience the opportunity to applaud the scene. Clara’s cheeky brother Fritz dances Mario Barcenilla Rubio, whose parents are Stahlbaum, sternly at the table and in all their duties with platonic storytelling power Simone Zannini and Grünebaum Prize winner Venira Welijan.
It is fascinating how dream and reality merge in these intimate Christmas hours, how Clara’s dreams find nourishment. So dolls can still be the sole stimulators of the imagination. The ballerina (Andrea Masotti) comes to life, and the mouse queen (marvelously Emily Downs) brings her scurrying entourage into a game that also makes the snowflakes dance beautifully and, as was once (and probably still) was, soldiers in position.
With this “Nutcracker”, ballet director Dirk Neuman has once again made his division shine and demonstrated the development potential of the company. He is proud of a collaboration with Giorgia Madia on this house. He has already celebrated successes here with the choreographic premieres of “Chopin Imaginaire” and “Harlequin”, but also with the production “Anatevka – Fiddler on the Roof”. After last weekend’s “Nutcracker” there was a standing ovation.
