Hints and tips:
...The Sugar Plum Fairy is guaranteed top billing but in Peter Wright’s Nutcracker it is little Clara Stahlbaum who gets the lion’s share of both dance and drama....
...Wright’s reading of Clara demands a tricky mix of ballerina skills and adolescent manners which Miki Mizutani negotiated beautifully....
...recalls Wright, with a playful modesty that feeds into the clothes....
...The basic scenario of a toymaker’s nephew turned into a novelty household implement remained unchanged (and they say ballets don’t have plots) but Clara, the young girl at the heart of the story, suddenly...
...Last Friday’s Clara was the brisk, sharp-footed Anna Rose O’Sullivan, partnered by James Hay....
...Wright has reworked his 1984 production many times over the years but the biggest changes were made in 1999, when he upgraded the role of Clara, the story’s heroine, giving her a greater part to play in...
...Peter Wright’s 1990 production for BRB is famous for John Macfarlane’s magical Act One transformation in which Clara shrinks to the size of the toys beneath the tree....
...Subscribe to FT Life on YouTube for the latest FT Weekend videos Letter in response to this article: Like a butter knife through butter / From Edward Fowler-Wright, Little Hereford, Shropshire, UK...
...The delightful Francesca Hayward — sincere, pure, elegant — was Clara, and her cavalier was the dashing Alexander Campbell. Cheers!...
...design as in style, and offering characterisations truthful and truthfully danced — not least from Alexander Campbell as a Nutcracker impeccable in step and drama, from Francesca Hayward as a charming Clara...
...His Act Two mime explaining how clever Clara saved him from the evil Mouse King was a miracle of fluency and musicality....
...Shortly before 9am on Sunday the Cosco Shipping Panama, surrounded by smoke-spewing tugs, was eased gently into the new Agua Clara locks near Colon in Panama — and into a place in maritime history....
...Covent Garden’s staging is, superlatively, by Peter Wright, who manages big effects (the mouse battle) and delicate things (the snowflakes) beautifully....
...Last Christmas saw her debut as Clara in Peter Wright’s Nutcracker; in February she sailed through the fiendish ballerina role in Frederick Ashton’s Rhapsody; in June she danced Vera in Ashton’s Month in...
...Julia Trevelyan Oman’s designs are an ideal setting, apt in period as in happiest illusions: the tree grows, Clara’s world miraculously changes....
...And every year, at curtain fall, I know that this production by Peter Wright remains the best I have seen – and at my christening Carabosse contented herself by snarling, “He shall see a hell of a lot of...
...Not all is lost; violinists are drawn to the enigmatic late violin sonatas, and late Schumann has found a champion in the director of the BBC Proms, Roger Wright, who has programmed a rich feast of the chamber...
...I think Iohna Loots a delicious Clara, showing us pathos and joy and sweetest dancing, while Ricardo Cervera is a dashing, joyous Nutcracker....
...Amazingly for all those involved, it’s 25 years since Sir Peter Wright’s production first took to the main stage and wowed people with the Christmas tree that grows and grows. I love it....
...I do not care for Clara’s involvement in the second act divertissements: she is an honoured guest, not a visiting performer....
...The critic’s task is sieve-like, and I make no bones about my admiration for Peter Wright, who has provided the two best stagings that I know: the happy production he made for his Birmingham Royal Ballet...
...Current events have forced Clara Furse to cancel her new year holiday to St Lucia....
...I do not know of a better Nutcracker than Peter Wright’s staging for the Royal Ballet....
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