A sparkling Christmas Carol from the Royal NZ Ballet

A Christmas Carol

Royal New Zealand Ballet 

A Northern Ballet production

St James Theatre, Wellington Until November 8 Then Dunedin (November 15-16), Christchurch (November 20-22), Palmerston North (November 26), Napier (November 29-30), Auckland (December 3-7), Takapuna (November 13-14)

It’s a few weeks out from Christmas but the Royal New Zealand Ballet is already celebrating with its latest ballet A Christmas Carol. It is a 20-year old production first staged by the UK-based Northern Ballet but it is the first time it has been staged here.

It tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a life-long miser and misanthrope who hates Christmas and any sort of joy. After a particularly distasteful Christmas Eve, he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future who remind him and warn him of the error of his ways. He is chastened and in the end he and the world rejoice.

The main set is a two-level affair of a Victorian London street with St Pauls and Big Ben in the background. Another set features a gloomy space with a large window that provides the light into Scrooge's bedroom as well as easy access for ghosts. There is also a central staircase that pivots to expose Scrooge’s work place, the Cratchits home and the underworld of ghosts and nightmares.

The production is more along the lines of the old-fashioned pantomime with stock characters who dance rather than pronounce and posture. A good read of the programme is essential otherwise you could get your ghosts, ghouls and apparitions confused.

Along with the set the lighting design by Jon Buswell (based on the original lighting by Paul Pyant) adds to the drama of the work, emphasising both the ghostly, almost black and white sequences as well as picking out the colours of the costumes. Dancing the role of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s oppressed employee, Kohei Iwamoto provided a range of interpretative dance.

In Scrooge’s office we saw him giving expression to his dreams while at home he provided a lively dance with Hayley Donnison (Mrs Cratchit) celebrating Christmas and later a contemplative tone emerged when reflecting on the death of his son, Tiny Tim.

One of the work's tender romantic moments was the dancing of Shane Urton (The Young Scrooge) and his fiance Belle Fezziwig (Lucy Green). This piece of lyrical dance created a complex set of emotions; Belle frustrated by his parsimonious nature, the Young Scrooge unable to understand Belle’s compromised love and the Older Scrooge’s belated recognition of his contribution to his own fate. In the same sequence Bronte Kelly gave an inspired performance as Mrs Fezziwig in a version of the old dame of the pantomime.

She and Rory Fairweather-Neylan (Mr Fessiwig) provided a well-udged comic buffoonery turn, which had the audiences applauding. The three ghosts each provided different characteristics with the Mayu Tanigaito’s Ghost of Christmas Past a dainty, flitting image with a headband of sparkling lights. MacLean Hopper’s Ghost of Christmas Present in an elaborate yuletide costume sprinkling fairy dust was in marked contrast to Peng Fei Jiang’s skeletal attire as the Ghost of Christmas Future. 

Paul Mathews as Scrooge gave an intelligent portrayal of the miser, seeming to exude a chilling personality in the first act. His acting throughout the ballet includes precise mime and faultless emotional reactions and he showed off his dancing ability in the finale with some elaborate moves and energetic pirouettes.

One of the innovative features of this production is the way in which the dancers act a lot more, expressing their characters through acting, facial expression and singing. While this is not a challenging work, it is a ballet for old and young as well as one that will appeal to dance lovers or those after an great evening's entertainment.

*John Daly-Peoples has a relative on the board of the Royal New Zealand Ballet