Two years ago I wrote that choreographer Vyatcheslav Gordeev's version of The Nut- cracker for the Russian State Ballet was the best I had seen. After seeing it again at the Point on Sunday night, my opinion is unchanged. It is the definitive Nutcracker, telling the story with great clarity and magic.
Angelika Tagirova, the company's prima ballerina, is the perfect Maria (known in the West as Clara). Petite, with beautifully expressive face and hands, she portrays all the hopes and fears, excitement and dreams of childhood.
Yevgeny Ivanchenko partnered her splendidly as the dream prince her nutcracker has become and his height helped to make her more child-sized. Gordeev seems to have developed the production since last seen, when the curtain rose on the guests arriving for the Christmas party. Now, before that, we see Drosselmeyer preparing his dolls to entertain them on arrival. Nor do I remember at the last sighting the dolls appearing in the enchanted forest as the snowflakes fall, thus maintaining plot continuity.
It is fitting that when Clara's brother breaks her beloved nutcracker it is not the piece of carved wood but the fine Perm-trained dancer Konstantin Teliatnikov as the Nutcracker Doll who is first broken, then magically mended. All the wonderful moments remain: the boys wearing mouse masks at the party to explain why Clara dreams of aggressive mice; the three Oriental Dancers combining to form a many-limbed Hindu god, after rising from a basket like snakes responding to their charmer's music.
There was good dancing, the costumes and Igor Nejni's sets were truly fairytale and the National Symphony Orchestra played the Tchaikovsky score well under the baton of Alexandre Sotnikov, but what brought the audience to its feet at the end was the perfect storytelling of Gordeev's choreography.