Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker

Nearly twenty years on from his first staging of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker ballet in 1967, the great ballet star and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev (1938-93) staged this, his final choreography of, and radically re-imagined revision of, this greatest of all ballets – the Paris version – in 1985 as director of the Paris ballet, a position he had ascended to two years earlier. Mr. Nureyev’s version enjoys a particular standing in the history of this ballet in that it was the first to incorporate the psychology of E. T. A Hoffman’s fairy tale on which Tchaikovsky’s ballet is based. In this production, the characters of Drosselmeyer and his nephew the Prince are one and the same person, representing the ideal man dreamt up by the Clara, the heroine, ready to leave her childhood and become a teenager. This presentation features dancers Liudmila Konovalova and Vladimir Shishov, the Wiener Staatsballett company, one of the world’s finest and the Wiener Staatsoper, conducted by Paul Connelly. “Elegant, romantic, delightful…great soloists, endearing pupils, fantasy-inspiring costumes, a harmonious and sure-footed ensemble” - Die Presse