To avoid echoing earlier reviews too closely, I note that several reviewers have already commented on the production’s evocation of a New Zealand summer. It is December, and the curtain rises on an iconic bach scene, pōhutukawa silhouetted against a gold-tinged sky. Tracy Grant Lord’s costumes take us straight there, bright colours offering a deliberate dose of Kiwiana kitsch. It is cheerful, sun-drenched, and unmistakably Aotearoa, yet as the familiar score swells through the theatre, what beckons is something older: the long-standing tradition of ballet at Christmas.

On opening night of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Nutcracker, nostalgia rises in me at the prospect of seeing again one of the most accessible and beloved ballets in the classical repertoire. Originally choreographed by Marius Petipa with Lev Ivanov, The Nutcracker is now more than 130 years old, with thousands of performances riveted into history. Petipa and Ivanov’s timing, intricacy, spatial clarity and musicality are reason enough to return. The audience around me, I sensed, was there for something more ephemeral. I think it is the feeling of being transported back to childhood, to fairytales brought to life, and to the family tradition of a Christmas show.

It takes time, once the curtain opens, not to feel a sting of disappointment. The wonderful Hamish McKeich leads the Auckland Philharmonia in an energetic, fast-paced Tchaikovsky score that lifts the dancers decisively into time and place. Directed by Ty King-Wall, the production certainly signals an affection for the New Zealand childhood while still holding ties to the traditional Nutcracker. But the Kiwi summer setting, the bach holiday, a post-fishing scene, barefoot dancers, fluorescent costumes, the glare of a beachy lightscape by Jon Buswell all seem at first like overstatement. 

These dancers are powerful and capable, yet they seem visually swamped by the pastiche of excess and hemmed in by an overly simplified movement vocabulary. The fish’n’chips picnic, tomato-sauce bottles, falling ice-cream, buzzy bee, cute-as children, and a brief tui and kererū comedic interaction frame an earnest attempt to make this ballet our own, but the choreography in Act I does not quite reach the timing and structural clarity that define Nutcracker at its best.

And then came Act II.

The Land of the Sweets, reimagined through Tracey Grant Lord’s marvellous costumes, is where the production finds its choreographic centre. If the first act was exuberant, the second is genuinely transporting. However, the copious snowfall, though visually enchanting, creates a dangerously slick surface that feels under-considered for dancers expected to move at full flight and in three dimensions. Kihiro Kusukami, as the Storm Master, endured two unexpected slips. His recovery was exemplary. He danced on with striking composure and, to all intents, delivered his demanding solos with admirable pizzazz. Despite these avoidable staging hazards, the dancing in this second act breathes with the clarity and finesse one hopes for in Petipa’s lineage.

Cadence Barrack’s Clara holds the narrative together, even as the production moved between two markedly different worlds. She maintains an exquisite charisma and delicate technical virtuosity. It is she who receives the nutcracker, and she who guides us through the transformation at the centre of this ballet.

Aunt Drosselmeyer is danced with flair by Kirby Selchow. She has a warmth of presence, and an elegance in dancing with her large mantle and broad-brimmed hat. Moana Nepia’s quiet koro adds an intergenerational nod to the summertime cast. Animated film effects by POW Studios heightened the sense of spectacle, though Clara and the Prince’s insect-eye flight left me wondering if the breathtaking landscapes of Aotearoa might have offered a more fitting backdrop at large for this magical transition.

Many of the second act pas de deux, trios and solos remind us that this ballet lives through the muscle memory of dancers worldwide. The absolute heart of the evening where time seemed to pause is the grand pas de deux. Mayu Tanigaito, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, was a force majeure of technique. Her dancing is crystalline, poised, and breathtakingly precise. I find myself craning forward, suspended in the sheer mastery of her legwork and musical phrasing. Laurynas Vėjalis, as the Nutcracker Prince, partners her with deep sensitivity to tradition and an unfaltering command of the classical line.

The ending lands abruptly, a brief epilogue casting me suddenly back into the task of reconciling the playful summer world of Act I with the traditional splendour of Act II. This Nutcracker is, undeniably, our own. It is sentimental, visually busy, occasional and, at first, a little garish, and overall, an undeniable treat. It asks us to consider what it means to make a northern-hemisphere winter fairytale speak to a southern-hemisphere summer. It invites us to consider the nature of transformation at Christmas, even as it entertains.

I am grateful. The children will adore it. And for many families, the ritual of gathering in a theatre to witness a fairytale come alive remains, thankfully, ageless.

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Dancing pavlovas, a chorus of magical mustelids, kereru and tui – choreographer Ty King-Wall and designer Tracy Grant Lord’s reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker places its jandaled feet firmly in our Kiwi beach backyard.  While this is clearly set under our own Pohutukawa branches, it draws from the 1892 production of Marius Petipa where the cast includes caramels, gingerbreads and many other sweets popular at the time.

The show opens with a curtain-size portrait of the familiar 1950s beach scene, in which slowly, cleverly, elements begin to animate. A buzzy-bee with skis pollenates the flowers.  The set piece flies up, and we are at the beach with two Cape Cod chairs, snapper on the rods, and a bach into which the characters lightly skip, including principal Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson who gets one of those inevitable sand dune prickles in his foot. Grandad/Koro (Moana Nepia) is welcomed with a hongi and Aunt Drosselmeyer (Kirby Selchow) arrives with all the poise and presence she brought to the dramatic role of Lady Capulet in the 2023 production of Romeo and Juliet.

From here we proceed through an iconic Kiwi beach blanket picnic, interrupted by a drunken kereru and cheeky tui, to nightfall and a darkening mood change as a feral chorus with rattitude battles our teenage protagonist Clara (Cadence Barrack) and takes on the nutcracker (Laurynas Vegalis) who has become a prince.  I felt the chorography of their pas de deux, while technically impressive, did not rise to the grandeur of the score.

In a slightly puzzling transition, we take a flight over typical New Zealand mountains where a Neuschwanstein-like castle of confections appears through the clouds.  Yes, yes – I know, it is fantasy!  The Storm Master (Kihiro Kusukami) is in charge of the alpine transition with a stunning solo performance that was unfortunately tripped by the generous flurries of snow from the flies. In the best of traditions, he carried on without skipping a beat.

We then enjoy a smorgasbord of dances as various lollies come to life and display their mastery of dance. It may be a rocky road across those mountains, but it takes all sorts.  A standout was Callum Gray as a strawberry pavlova, so beautifully fluid and expressive, lithe and precise while still at ease. (That role might take some explaining in his professional portfolio!)

 Once again, when we came to the Waltz of The Flowers, I found the eight flower dancers (plus Kate Kadow’s Pohutukawa) were stretched to fill the stage – despite its quite inward tabs. While the dancers were technically impressive, they seemed to lack the sweep to match the music.  Actually, the backdrop cyclorama also had gaps at the edges, that suggested it was designed for stages smaller than the Aotea Centre.

Tracy Grant Lord’s design had taken a balletic leap into the future with the magical, almost hallucinogenic, Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Here she works with lighting painter Jon Buswell, who brought to vivid life her designs for The Firebird, creating and illuminating other-world environments.  Instead of those celestial fires, here they bring us the golden rays of summer at the beach, and the toddler-terrifying fiery eyes of the rats, weasels, possums and stoats stirred up by the dusk-heralding ruru in the roots of a Pohutukawa tree that grows before our very eyes. Pow Studios have once again added their staging projection power to the production.

Musically, mention must be made of the virtuosic piccolo, the sparkling celesta instrument on a rare outing, Ingrid Bauer’s flowing harp and the perfectly coordinated deep brass collaboration that Tchaikovsky relies on for an unlikely central, woven golden cord that draws ‘The Waltz of The Flowers’.

While The Nutcracker fairytale may jolt when crossing the real and imagined-world divide (but no more so than Peter Pan or A Christmas Carol), in the more traditional setting with all its un-PC foibles, the worlds are bridged by the (then) contemporary 19th century music of Tchaikovsky in all its grandeur and romanticism. The Kiwi beach setting, to my mind, has a certain alienation from the music that the more mystic cavorting confections of Act 2 are able to better integrate with. I love the creative ambition, however.

The King-Wall casting mines the dancing wealth of the company; from the noble bearing and confident maturity of Kirby Selchow, the longevity of Mayu Tanigaito (Sugar Plum Fairy) who has been with RNZB since 2012 and brought such a sparkle to the Act 2 pas de deux, the enduring strength of Laurynas Vejalis (Nutcracker/Prince) with his kinetic and beautifully-balanced and spotted speedy consecutive turns and the enticing growth of recent principals Ana Gallardo Lobain, Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson and Kihiro Kusukami, to the incorporation of youth such as Parker Poppelton (Fritz) who was recently in Priscilla The Musical.

Key to this multi-generational approach is the plethora of dance schools nationwide, from provinces to cities, that are credited in a whole page of the 120-page printed programme.

All this underscores the mātauranga with which the Royal New Zealand Ballet is imbued, the layers of experience and education, the invention and the dedication to weaving the essence of Aotearoa into every step along the way. 

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When The Nutcracker was first performed at the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg in 1892 it received a luke-warm reception and no one could have imagined that it would become, over 130 years later, the world’s most popular ballet. Almost every ballet company has a production of The Nutcracker in its repertoire and the Royal New Zealand Ballet is no exception.

The company has staged it many times in different versions since Russell Kerr’s original production in 1963 so Ty King-Wall’s new interpretation, his first full-length ballet since becoming the company’s artistic director, was awaited with particular anticipation. Following its initial run of performances in Wellington, Christchurch audiences now have the opportunity to experience a production that will change the way we see The Nutcracker for a generation to come. 

Traditional productions of the ballet are set in the comfortable bourgeois world of nineteenth-century Germany on the eve of a snowy northern-hemisphere Christmas. For New Zealanders, this has an element of fantasy that adds to the ballet’s attraction, but it is also remote from their experience of what Christmas means in this part of the world. King-Wall, working closely with designer Tracey Grant Lord, was keen to give the ballet a local inflection, while retaining the traditional story line and the element of fantasy that is so much a part of the ballet’s appeal.  In this they have succeeded brilliantly, flipping the season to mid-summer and the setting to a pohutukawa-shaded New Zealand beach, complete with traditional bach.

The genders of some of the key characters have also been swapped. Herr Drosselmeyer, whose gift of the Nutcracker doll sets the plot in motion, has now become Auntie Drosselmeyer, a famous dancer who has returned from Europe to visit family in New Zealand. There is perhaps a nod here to another antipodean reimagining of the ballet, Graeme Murphy’s The Story of Clara for the Australian Ballet, although in other respects they are distinctly different.

The ballet opens with family and friends gathering at the beach, barefoot and in swimming togs, the beach just out of sight beyond the dunes, but so palpably present you can almost feel the sand between the dancers’ toes. Tracey Grant Lord’s brightly coloured costumes evoke the 1950s and the choreography also references the popular dance moves of that era.

References to the ‘icons’ of Kiwi popular culture come thick and fast with almost comical effect; surf boards, chocolate fish, pavlova and so on all make an appearance, but if you want to discover the key role played by jandals you will have to see the show for yourself.

It is also gratifying to see Taiaroa Royal on stage in the Theatre Royal once more in the role of the wise and protective Koro, whose presence provides a link to a more ancient relationship with the land. King-Wall’s readiness to acknowledge the depth of New Zealand’s dance culture has already been shown in previous productions and this sense of continuity with the past is a welcome trend.

The Christmas festivities of the New Zealand branch of the Stahlbaum family have a relaxed, easy-going, almost ‘she’ll be right’ quality rather than the well drilled formality of more traditional productions; there isn’t a point shoe in sight.  The children’s games are boisterous, carefree affairs and the Nutcracker doll is broken, not out of spite by a jealous younger brother but as a result of a simple accident. 

The ballet’s mood darkens only when Clara returns at bedtime to look for the Nutcracker. The call of the ruru rather than the clock striking midnight is the sign for the magical transformation of the beachfront, as the pohutukawa tree grows to enormous size and Possums, Ferrets, Stoats and the Mouse King emerge with glowing eyes from beneath its roots. I almost expect DOC rangers to appear rather than the toy soldiers who actually come to Clara’s defence, although it is she who eventually overcomes the Mouse King.

With the transformation of the Nutcracker doll into a handsome prince, Clara’s voyage of discovery begins, guided by the benign but slightly mysterious Auntie Drosselmeyer. The Land of Snow, the ballet’s traditional ‘white act’, is presided over not by the usual Snow Queen but by a Storm Master, who whips the corps de ballet of Snowflakes into swirling motion. Kihiro Kusukami fully embraces this role and dances up a storm of virtuoso steps.

The second act is introduced by a flight on a magical helicopter that strongly resembles a Buzzy Bee; projected aerial images of the Southern Alps evoke another local classic, the National Film Unit’s 1970 documentary, This Is New Zealand. They arrive in the Land of Sweets, overlooked by a fairy-tale castle that looks as if borrowed from a child’s pop-up book. 

Here the treats that were part of the Christmas eve party come to life to the music of Tchaikovsky’s national dances; Chocolate Fish, Hokey Pokey Ice Cream and Lolly Slice are all celebrated, the latter a high-energy sugar rush to the music of the Russian variation. Pavlova, the dancer and the desert, are recognised in a pas de trois for a man and two women that includes a subtle reference to the great English choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, but surely the great Russian dancer who toured New Zealand in 1926 should have been the central figure, supported by two subordinate men. 

The costumes for the sweets are a confection of delight, colourful, inventive and, in the Waltz of the Flowers, a sumptuous display of native botanical riches. 

The act culminates in the celebrated pas de deux for the Nutcracker Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy, one of ballet’s great set pieces. In this Mayu Tanigaitu and Laurynas Vejalis provide one of the evening’s highlights with a bravura display of classical dancing, poised, radiant and controlled. This is also one of the most scintillating passages in Tchaikovsky’s score and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra under Hamish McKeich rise to the occasion. 

Throughout the entire ballet, the RNZB’s dancers appear to relish this fresh new interpretation of a traditional favourite. Catarina Estévez Collins is a glowing, wide-eyed Clara while Ana Gallardo Lobaina exudes mystery and sophistication as Auntie Drosselmeyer.  Luke Cooper’s Mouse King is sleazy and suave as well as a bit terrifying, especially for younger audience members. It is, however, an ensemble production in which every member of a large cast plays their part to the hilt.

As an art form, ballet is well suited to evoking fantastic, mythical realms, and the New Zealand of the 1950s evoked in this production, with its culture of egalitarianism, racial harmony and plenty, is now as much a mythic world as the secure middle-class environment of early nineteenth-century Germany into which Herr Drosselmyer introduced his disruptive gifts.

From the vantage point of 2025, with contemporary culture wars, coastal mansions and three dollar school lunches, it is now clear that the Golden Weather has, indeed, come to an end.

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Under the gnarled bough of an ancient pōhutukawa tree, resplendent with crimson flowers, this localised interpretation of The Nutcracker unfolds. A vocal audience sigh and guffaw at the multiple EnZed references: dripping ice-cream mishaps; games of touch rugby and cricket; a mother spearfishing for kaimoana; jandals and gumboots.

Bright and joyous, choreographer Ty King-Wall offers this work as a balm in a disrupted world. It lands with delight on the audience who appreciate every nuance. A resplendent tūi flits through and a bumbling kererū crashes to the ground drunk on berries.

An acknowledgement of te ao Māori (the Māori world), with the inclusion of Moana Nepia as Clara’s koro, situates the work culturally in Aotearoa, as the cast frolic in an idealised summer at the family bach – an attempt to broaden this middle class Pākehā reality. [More]

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The dilemma of a Southern Hempishere Christmas ballet is solved! We are firmly in February and the curtain rises on a quintessential Kiwi bach with our own pōhutukawa in silhouette against a Pacific sky. Costumes by Tracy Grant Lord immediately put us in story-time mode and the bright lollipop colours gleefully provide a dose of Kiwiana kitsch.

This production, directed by Ty King-Wall, has his own sentimental take on growing up in New Zealand but also speaks strongly of his experience as part of the tradition of The Nutcracker that is in every dancer’s repertoire. The choreography often references the original and much-renowned sequences of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. 

Under the magical baton of Hamish McKeich, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra gives a beautifully realised performance of this famous Tchaikovsky score. There are bird songs connecting us to our bush and the Kingdom of Sweets is a frivolous  feast of summer treats. I have to admit I struggle to recognise most of them but have since identified Lolly Cake, Pavlova, Hokey Pokey Ice cream cones and even Chocolate Fish in the sweet treats on offer.

King-Wall has kept to the storyline even as the dancers are bare legged in frilly play suits and the children are in perfectly matched colours in a way that no children ever are! They bring an energy to the beach gathering and fish ’n’ chips provide an appropriate and humorous picnic. The dance vocabulary references hand jive and social party moves.

The Magician who arrives with presents, including the traditional Nutcracker Doll, is not mysterious nor magical but a slim, elegant, gorgeous Aunt Drosselmeyer (Kirby Selchow) wearing a stunning cloak and a wide-brimmed sombrero. The ‘dolls’ are birds, the parents are young, Clara and her brother tussle – and there is a Koro played by Moana Nepia, who adds gravitas and a sense of generational perspective to the family gathering.

Lighting by Jon Buswell and film effects by POW studios are strong elements of this production and I love the flight over mountains that Clara and her Prince are taken on by Aunt Drosselmeyer. A perfect reason for the snowflakes and swirling snow that is so European in a northern winter. Here it is our snow and our mountains – albeit a tad slippery for the spinning virtuosity of the dancers.

The Lolly Cake trio are exciting but the absolute stand out dancing comes, as it traditionally always should, from the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince.

Showing consummate mastery of very challenging and technical choreography, this is a Pas de Deux that stops me breathing – literally! Danced by Mayu Tangigato and Laurynas Vejalis, who partner seamlessly and are superbly in command in every classical move, this is the real icing on the cake in this production.

Clara (Caterina Estevez Collins ) is excellent as the child for whom all this happens. Abruptly the dream ends – she wakes in her father’s arms after sleeping under the summer stars and returns to the bach where it all began.

Frivolity and fun, this is escapism and an evening in a dream world surrounded by things we all hold dear. Thanks to all and to Ty King-Wall for making it happen.

Dance should connect us and our issues, and is an opportunity for social comment. This Nutcracker has been created as our own and gives us time out and a chance to think. It is perhaps superficial but it is also a super treat.

Go see it when the RNZB comes to your city.

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