Visual Arts

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker has been delighting Midlands audiences for more than 30 years. The magical sets and sumptuous costumes, created by designer John Macfarlane, have made a major contribution to the production’s popularity. What’s On caught up with John to find out what’s new for The Nutcracker in 2022...

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker is without a doubt one of the company’s most popular shows. The production was gifted to the city in 1990 by the then artistic director, Sir Peter Wright, as a thank you to Birmingham for making the company so welcome when it moved from London. The show has been performed almost every Christmas since. The Nutcracker is loved for its amazing costumes and sets, from giant Christmas trees through to sweets and snowflakes. And yet its designer, John Macfarlane, admits he was initially reluctant to take up the commission. “Strangely enough, of the three Tchaikovskys, The Nutcracker was the one I least wanted to do. Sir Peter Wright writes in his book that when he asked me to do it, I ‘was uncertain’. “But it was such an enormous production to be offered. I asked Sir Peter for a few days to think about it and work out how I would approach it. “I was anxious that the Rat Battle should be frightening - a band of rats, not little mice and that Clara should take part in the diverts in act two and not just watch them. Above all that the Christmas tree and the fireplace should grow to an enormous scale.” John managed to achieve all three of those ambitions. His transformation scene, in which the Christmas tree grows and the fireplace rotates, has become a magic moment of ballet staging for dance fans in Birmingham and beyond. The show has now been performed more than 500 times to a total audience of over one million people. But after being staged for more than 30 years, The Nutcracker had begun to show its age, so every element including lighting, sets and costumes - has been recreated. This month the newly refurbished production will be unveiled at Birmingham Hippodrome. “I think the rebuild will be a return to the palette of this show on its first night in 1990,” says John. “This is the first time I’ve completely re-built an existing production. What is really interesting is that you go into it thinking ‘I’m going to change this and I’m going to change that,’ and then, when you actually start to try and do it, you suddenly remember why you did certain things the way you did. “I’m not sure the audience has actually realised how much The Nutcracker has worn over the years - but when they see this rebuild, it will be so vibrant; everything will be rich and colourful.” The update has given John the chance to make some tweaks to costumes and sets including updates he has been keen to undertake for years. “More than 80 per cent is the same, but we have been able to do some changes with new fabrics and materials. And it has given us the chance to come back to some things and improve them. “So, for example, we have new snowflake wings. When we made them originally, they were made appliqué on net and were extremely difficult to side light. Now the wings are hard and the filigree is cut out of a hard material. So it’s a little bit more scary for dancers because they are running and doing jumps, but it will make the whole thing look absolutely clean and crisp. We are also building 44 new Snowflake costumes and headdresses. “And there are some other changes. On the front cloth, the little nutcracker is front-on instead of side-on, which I always wanted to change. I’ve made it so that he is now looking straight out at the audience.” John has created sets for ballet, theatre and opera across the globe, but he admits BRB’s Nutcracker is special for him. “The ideas and production concept evolved very easily, and I remember feeling that there was something quite special about the process. In your career you can pick out three or four productions that have changed your direction, and you realise you cannot go back to how you did things before. I think that Nutcracker was one of those. It was a huge learning process, and I didn’t realise it until a long time afterwards. “When I thought of the objects that you could use to explain the change of scale, the fireplace was the obvious choice. The tree, of course, is explained in the orchestral score, but the fireplace could be dramatic and monumental and prove a great entrance for the King Rat. “But I do remember being in complete anxiety about what to do with the snowflakes because the thought of big slobbery pine trees with snow on them was just horrible to me. I was building the model in February and March, and at that time I lived in Mid-Wales, and on our property there was a small copse of larch trees. It was one of those mornings where, in the night, there had been a snowfall, no wind and clear sky, and every tiny twig of the larches for about half an hour before the sun melted it had a little line of snow on it. It was this amazing image. And that was the snowflakes.” The rebuild took more than a year, cost £1million and was made possible thanks to the extraordinary support of hundreds of individuals, numerous trusts & foundations and BRB investment. “People have really supported this,” says John. “I did an evening at the Hippodrome where we went through all the costumes with an audience. We had the old headdresses and the first of the new ones, and I could show bits of the model. I couldn’t imagine anyone turning out for that on a Tuesday night in December, but they did - and they raised so much money in just that one evening. “I hope the audience are going to love their new Nutcracker after all the work we’ve done on it. It’s richer and more opulent, but it’s still their Birmingham Nutcracker.”

Birmingham Royal Ballet presents The Nutcracker at Birmingham Hippodrome from Sat 19 November to Sat 10 December

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