Winter dance sensation

DANA SCHLANGER

Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker arrives Nov. 4, at Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey, for one performance, brought here by American-Israeli producer Akiva Talmi.

Reached by telephone at his Massachusetts office, Talmi told the Independent that he was born in the United States but spent several years on Kibbutz Kfar Blum in Israel, until 1963, when he left to return to New York to study composition at the Julliard School of Music. In time, he became a dance and music producer and, in the process, connected with many of the great names in Russian ballet, developing an abundant knowledge of Russian ballet history and the many declared and undeclared Jewish artists involved.

“The new and unusual thing about the current Nutcracker production,” explained Talmi, “is that there are 10 scenic backdrops which create a cinematic technique of concrete visualization of the plot. The technique of concrete visualization was developed by a Jewish director in Moscow, Nathalia Satz. She was initially an actor in the Moscow classical theatre under [Constantin] Stanislavsky, the creator of Method acting. Right after the revolution, [Satz] created the Moscow Children’s Theatre. There, together with [Sergei] Prokofiev, she wrote the libretto of Peter and the Wolf. She was later taken to the Gulag by [Joseph] Stalin and imprisoned for many years, but under [Nikita] Khrushchev’s rule she was allowed to come back. She created another theatre and prospered, until age 92.

“The Moscow Ballet idea came from Nathalia Satz and myself – it was formed in the Perestroika period of 1986, and the editor of the U.S.-based Dance Magazine took to heart my idea of bringing artists from eastern European countries together and make a [festival] about Glasnost [the gradual opening of the Soviet communist society]. So I went to Moscow and got two people from the Bolshoi Ballet, two from Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, two from Hungary, two from Czechoslovakia, two from China and two from Bulgaria. We toured for three years. The climax was when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. It was extremely well received and there were TV specials made about the festival.”

Out of this, the Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker was born as a touring company, presenting Pyotr Ilyic Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Swan Lake and Prokofiev’s Cinderella. The Great Russian Nutcracker’s current staging does not follow the libretto commonly used in North America. In the second act, Clara/Masha and her prince travel to the Land of Peace and Harmony instead of visiting the Sugar Plum Fairy. This is in agreement with the company’s long-standing theme of international and cultural unity.

Talmi presents the concept: “Nutcracker in the Land of Peace and Harmony is our trademark idea and, visually, it is inspired by the Fauvist paintings of Henri Rousseau, whose jungle scenes of wild-but-friendly animals suggest a harmony in nature,” he said. “At the same time, the production is strongly rooted in Russian visual tradition, not the German setting of its libretto. Exclusive to [this ballet is] Father Christmas, a Russian version of Santa Claus, and his daughter, the Snow Maiden, whose costumes were created by Olga Dumova. The highly ornamental costumes display classic Russian opulence and grandeur, a costuming tradition of detailing that is rarely seen elsewhere and dates back hundreds of years in Russian theatrical history. Award-winning set designer and puppet-maker Valentin Federov, who studied under the legendary Valery Leventhal of the Bolshoi Ballet, creates stunning backdrops with 3-D details and life-size puppets that will dazzle young and old alike: elephants and lions for the Arabian Dance, a bull for the Spanish Dance, a dragon for the Chinese one and a unicorn for the French.”

And for those young ballet lovers who dream of being onstage for the Nutcracker, Talmi opens the door: “My wife and I started a tradition of inviting between 12-60 children in every city to do walk-on roles. We usually work with local dance schools to audition the students. Altogether, nearly 6,000 local dance students throughout the 70-city tour are selected to join the cast and it can become a life-changing experience for them – and a great satisfaction for us!”

Dana Schlanger is a freelance writer and director of the Dena Wosk School of Performing Arts.

^TOP