Spring may be starting to appear in Kyiv, but the National Opera House is continuing the winter mood with performances of the Nutcracker ballet.
The hall was full for the performance on Feb. 25, with a matinee scheduled for March 6, and the possibility of further performances in April.
There’s much to admire in the latest interpretation of the classic Christmas tale by Valery Kovtun, the National Opera House’s chief choreographer. He improvises on the 109-year-old ballet, composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, splitting the role of the Nutcracker between ballerina Tetyana Sokolova, who plays the toy, and Andriy Gura, who dances as the Prince.
The Nutcracker is a love story between teenager Clara and a toy Nutcracker that turns into a prince who defends the girl from an army of mice led by the Mouse King.
The mice dance was a nice surprise of the evening. The costumes, choreography and performance made you believe that you were truly surrounded by rodents. Igor Bulychov as the Mouse King was striking and was even more like a huge bat, leaping effortlessly with his flying cloak.”
In the first act, the Nutcracker is played expertly by Sokolova, who moves just like a toy – her legs and arms hang loosely when she is being passed around, but when dancing she is brilliantly precise in all her movements.
After defeating the Mouse King, the second act sees the Nutcracker, now a prince, and Clara, played by Natalya Lazebnikova, touring the Land of Sweets. There they are greeted with beautiful dances – Spanish, Arabian, Chinese and Russian. The most colorful dance is the Waltz of the Flowers.
The main pas de deux, the Andante Maestoso, as Tchaikovsky called it, is the most romantic part of the ballet and the culmination of Clara and the Prince’s love affair.
Gura as the Prince impresses with his high and light leaps, but his lifts appeared heavy. Sometimes it even seemed that he was not catching his partner but dropping her and this rather spoiled the romance of the pas de deux.
Lazebnikova as tiny Clara gave a stunning performance, with a precise and well-balanced fouettes, or turns, soft arms in the port de bras, a series of arm movements. The only thing that was less pleasing on the eye were her leaps which seemed heavy.
The mice dance was a nice surprise of the evening. The costumes, choreography and performance made you believe that you were truly surrounded by rodents. Igor Bulychov as the Mouse King was striking and was even more like a huge bat, leaping effortlessly with his flying cloak.
Kovtun’s version of the choreography is much better than Kirill Simonov’s recent popular staging at the Mariinsky Theater.
The St. Petersburg version of pas de deux looks more like a simple dance than classical ballet. The fight between the Nutcracker and mice looks boring and the magical Waltz of the Flowers lacks symmetry and synchronicity.
The musical performance by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra was flawless, and the conductor Allin Vlasenko received an ovation at the end.
Another stand out was the set design of Maryna Levitska, the main painter of the National Opera House. The winter city and bright costumes really bring you into the Christmas fairytale.
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Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliya Raskevich can be reached at [email protected].
