Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the glorious scene at the beginning of Act Two, in which the romantically colourful outlaws dance to Rimsky-Korsakov’s marvellously expressive Capriccio Espagnol.Ĭonstance Devernay (who dances the title role with splendid grace and authority) shines in a generally exceptional company. Hampson’s impressive choreography ranges from the plaintive, to the dynamic and the pleasingly comic. The pair’s adventures take us from a visually spectacular circus scene, to the gorgeously vivid camp of itinerant outlaws and, finally, the Snow Queen’s frozen lair (complete with sinisterly masked Jackfrosts). Cue the unlikely partnership of the upright Gerda and the knife-wielding pickpocket Lexi (the Summer Princess’s alter-ego in the corporeal world). Under a railway bridge, in a mid-20th-century urban landscape (one of a series of brilliant set designs by Lez Brotherston), the Snow Queen steals young Kai from his besotted lover Gerda. In this smart, emotive adaptation, the Snow Queen shatters the evil looking glass when her sister, the Summer Princess, abandons her in search of love in the human world. Hampson’s version of the famous story has no place for wicked trolls who inadvertently smash the Snow Queen’s malevolent mirror. Combined with the dramatic, romantic, playfully Orientalist music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and a vibrant, new choreography by Christopher Hampson, it makes for a truly scintillating dance work. Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of The Snow Queen is a deeply evocative choice for Scottish Ballet’s winter show. Scottish Ballet’s dancing queen is a Christmas treatīy MARK BROWN Andrew Peasgood and Constance Devernay in The Snow Queen by Scottish Ballet.
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