Tag Archives: Peter Wright

The Nutcracker with Nuñez and Soares, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, December 2012.

At the start of this Peter Wright production, we see Drosselmeyer in his workshop comparing his toy Nutcracker with a portrait on the wall of his lost nephew. Then at the very end, where some productions show Clara being put to bed by her mother, the Nutcracker prince finds his Uncle Drosselmeyer and they embrace. …

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Coppélia, Birmingham Royal Ballet, BRB, London Coliseum, March 2012

London Coliseum audiences who went to Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann recently saw one version of Coppélia in the first act of that opera. It involves a young man who falls for a mechanical doll built by Dr. Coppélius, based on an 1816 tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann himself. This ballet was created in Paris in 1870 less than two months before the …

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Nutcracker, Birmingham Royal Ballet, BRB at the O2, December 2011

Ballet under the big top of the O2 — can it work, or is the audience too far away to see the dancers clearly? Sitting behind the raked tiers of seats, the view was clear if distant, but a closer view was shown on a big screen above the stage. This was very cleverly done, …

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Giselle, Royal Ballet, live relay from Covent Garden, January 2011

This two-act ballet creates a wonderful dichotomy between daylight and night-time. Act I is set in the everyday world, but the second act takes place in world of the wilis, spirits of dead maidens who rise up and destroy any young man they encounter.

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Sleeping Beauty, Birmingham Royal Ballet, BRB, London Coliseum, April 2010

This production has some wonderful moments, and I particularly liked the way Carabosse reappears in Act I as a shrouded old woman, apparently willing to be arrested after giving Aurora the spindle, yet suddenly throwing off her disguise and creating havoc.

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