So much so that the culture preaches about sustainability and there are times when it achieves opposite results. Ballet de Catalunya, which this year has run out of a theater for its Christmas Nutcracker, has taken Tchaikovsky’s tale with music on tour to the Baltic countries, where there is no shortage of balletic offerings and understanding audiences . It is not for nothing that decades passed under the Russian halo in the USSR, when the apparatus detected children’s talents in the republics in order to train them in the capitals and perhaps generate good teachers back home. This is how the Vaganova Academy of Saint Petersburg maintained its greatness in the 20th century.
Thirty years after Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gained independence – and started teaching English in kindergarten instead of Russian – the love of ballet is still important. It doesn’t matter if they overlap with the opera titles of Vilnius, Riga or Tallinn, the programmers bring in foreign companies to cover the demand. In Tallinn, where the Catalan Ballet finished its successful tour on Thursday (the three capitals plus Kaunas and Siauliai), the director of the Estonian National Ballet, Linnar Looris, explained to this newspaper that the twenty performances of his Nutcracker in the Opera are sold out.
“And the fact that the new production sets the interiors in the present day, with technological children’s games, is a reason for the public not to come: they want a total classic, especially the Russian public”, says Alexela Kontserdimaja to the generous audience, the 1,800-seat auditorium where the Catalans perform.
Estonia has a 20% Russian population, expats who did not leave when the USSR dismembered. “Well, it’s not that I’m Russian, I’m local”, says an elegant woman who has taken her two daughters to see the Ballet de Catalunya. “We’ve been to Barcelona and I’m excited that a company from there is visiting us.”
A few rows away, a science teacher who has taken young students to see the show – 34 euros the cheapest ticket – says that it does not seem exotic to her that they come to dance from Barcelona. “In the end it is an international company”, he says.
Indeed, some of the soloists in this troupe of 35 dancers who have gone on tour are citizens of the world. Catalina Iliescu, former soloist of the Bucharest Opera and now of Constanta, has joined for the role of Clara. And the magnetic soloist of the Catalan company, Ellen Mäkelä, sister of the young Finnish batonist Klaus Mäkelä, shines as the Sugar Fairy from E.T.A Hoffman’s tale on which this Christmas classic is based. But together with the prince played by the Italian Paolo Calò, a graduate of La Scala, the Catalan – one of many – David García Lucas shines with aplomb as the Captain.
In addition to all this, those who act as Clara’s parents are the historic ballet master and ex-ballerina of the Liceu Ángeles Lacalle and the choreographer Javier Bagà, who has introduced touches of Catalan folk dances in the reading given by the Ballet’s artistic director, Elías García , from the original by Ivanov and Petipa. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, García proposes a passage through the mirror so that Clara decides to stop being a child. “The Nutcracker talks about personal improvement and the transformation from puberty to adolescence/maturity. It is a fable and it must remain so,” he says.
The Baltics, expressionless, dissolve in applause at the end. And the children then approach Mäkelä to take pictures with the fairy. “It’s incredible the amount that was in the room and the education with which they follow the function. For them this photo is to spell magic. And if the parents post it, it’s a win-win”, says the Finnish enthusiast, happy to be so close to home and hear such a similar language.
That no one is a prophet in their land can be assured by the managers of this company based in Terrassa, which has not found a hole this Christmas in any theater in the metropolitan area, not even in the Principal in the same town in Valles, where in February they present a new Juliet and Romeo, thus, in reverse. The auditoriums of Sant Cugat or Girona have not responded either. Not even the Balañá theaters in Barcelona wanted ballet this year; they expect Natalia Osipova to land on January 10. For each other, the capital is spending Christmas without a single ballet.
So, those from Catalonia did not miss the opportunity to go on tour and expose themselves to large audiences of more than two thousand people per session. Following the tour, they have been invited to the Diaghilev Festival in Saint Petersburg. And it is possible that they repeat in the Baltic, points out Leo Sorribes, president of the Ballet de Catalunya Foundation, “but in better conditions”. Not being able to set up part of a set for a day due to lack of time and technical support is not something that any company should accept. Not even the Russians and Ukrainians who usually pass through Spain with some shortcomings.