Beauty and the Beast
Birmingham Hippodrome
The Nutcracker
Royal Opera House, London WC2
David Bintley's revival of his Beauty and the Beast, created for Birmingham Royal Ballet two years ago, is one of a cluster of Christmas dance shows about ugly outsiders redeemed by true love: Edward Scissorhands, Pinocchio, The Nutcracker. The Beast is the most fearsome of them all, for he wields power over mere humans, even as he longs for them to pity his suffering.
What has he done to deserve his horrible state? Bintley provides a prologue in which a prince out hunting is turned into a beast as a punishment for wantonly killing animals. The fable seems, at first, a pagan one, about respecting nature. The Beast must learn to live among animals until he wins the love of a virgin who is no longer repelled by him. But Bintley also intends the story to be a Christian parable, in which original sin can be forgiven, the sinner reborn into grace.
This is quite a charge for a fairy-tale ballet to bear. The Beast has to carry it, for Belle, the beauty he holds hostage, is little but a cypher. Though Elisha Willis does what she can to round out the character, she is simply the agent of his redemption. This time around, Robert Parker succeeds in making the Beast far more complex than he did when the production was new. Then, his monstrous mask stifled all expression; now, he reveals his struggle against his baser instincts, his anguish when Belle rejects him.
When he's transformed back into a man, we, like Belle, have to come to terms with him once again. Scarcely recognisable as the hunter in the dark prologue, he looks smaller and more vulnerable than his beastly alter ego.
Mark Jonathan has relit the rest of the production so that Philip Prowse's magnificent jet and gold designs are now visible in detail, their magic wittily surprising. The strange story, sinister and comic by turns, works on different levels for adults and children, sceptics and believers.
Though The Nutcracker's scenario is never really satisfactory, it prevails as a family Christmas treat because everyone knows at least one tune from Tchaikovsky's score. He introduced the tinkling celesta as a novel accompaniment for the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance, a tune in practically every merry muzak compilation going.
At the first of the Royal Ballet's matinees, Sarah Lamb was aptly delicate and joyful in her debut in the role. She is fast coming to the fore as a dancer of exceptional precision and elegance.
Viacheslav Samodurov, as her prince, showed off the power and good manners of his Russian training. Caroline Duprot was wide-eyed with wonder as the heroine, Clara, who rescues the Nutcracker.
Brian Maloney's eagerness, when he thanked her for saving him, made their innocent romance ring true.
