The Snow Queen Festival Theatre Edinburgh Thursday 24th November 2022 Review
Scottish Ballet The Snow Queen is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh (19th November – 10th December) and if you like classic fairy tales, winter magic, ballet, and the music of Rimsky-Korsakov then this is a show not to miss.
This year, due to the large scale renovation project planned at The King’s Theatre, Scottish Ballet are a little earlier than usual in Edinburgh to fit into a schedule that allows the much loved King’s Theatre Panto (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs this year) to be moved to the Festival Theatre. This scheduling change has clearly not deterred audiences though as the theatre was full this evening.
Unlike Scottish Ballet’s ever popular “The Nutcracker”, “The Snow Queen” is clearly a winter’s tale rather than a “Christmas story” and this production, with choreography by Christopher Hampson and design by Lez Brotherson is a skilful adaptation based on the original Hans Christian Andersen’s classic.
“The Snow Queen” may be a modern ballet, but underneath this surface illusion it has all the elements of a classical ballet story – romance, unrequited love, family feuds, larger than life characters, and dark forces at work as good battles evil.
Bringing all of this to life from the moment we are introduced to this fantasy world through a huge broken magical mirror are Constance Devernay-Laurence (The Snow Queen) and Alice Kawalek (The Summer Princess/Lexi). It is this background story of two sisters at odds with each other in the Snow Queen’s palace and broken shards of an enchanted mirror (and what it revealed) that set the scene for everything that is to follow in this story.
Two very different sisters, and two very different dancers in very different roles. Here Alice Kawalek takes on the human identity of thief/pickpocket Lexi with much of her choreography fitting around her scenes with crowds and Romany gypsies which, when combined with the very different distinctive colour palette of her costume and her warmth as a character, always marks her out in sharp contrast to her sister “The Snow Queen”
The Snow Queen is everything that you would expect her to be, cold, regal and aloof, and Constance Devernay-Laurence brings all of these qualities to this role and all of this is emphasised by very distinctive choreography and costume design. This role seems to have been tailor-made for Constance as it gives her the perfect opportunity to show why she is one of Scottish Ballet’s principal dancers. As well as the obvious technical ballet skills, this role also requires enormous physical strength for some of these moves and Constance is always making it all look effortless and graceful.
There is another story interweaving with the lives of the Snow Queen and Summer Princess, the romance of Gerda (Roseanna Leney) and Kai (Jerome Barnes) and together they are a dance combination that I hope to see more of in coming productions, as both have the expressive qualities needed to bring these types of roles into life.
Since I first saw this production in 2019, both Christopher Hampson and Lez Brotherson have re-visited this work and “tweaked” it a little. Some changes are very hard to see, others are more obvious, but do they make “The Snow Queen” better? The answer to that is probably a yes overall as, although some of the darker elements of this story are now softened and brightened in some places, this has made the whole production a more positive story overall. Do children still want a little of the darkness that is in these original fairy tales? Perhaps.
Is the Snow Queen really evil? I never think so in this story as her actions are guided by very different and very personal motives, some even protective of her sister the Summer Princess.
“The Snow Queen” is a magical work in its own right that relies on so many different creative talents to come together, and this enchanted world onstage of shattered mirror glass, reflections, snow and ice creates a perfect setting for Scottish Ballet’s dancers and Rimsky-Korsakov’s music.
Review by Tom King © 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This year, due to the large scale renovation project planned at The King’s Theatre, Scottish Ballet are a little earlier than usual in Edinburgh to fit into a schedule that allows the much loved King’s Theatre Panto (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs this year) to be moved to the Festival Theatre. This scheduling change has clearly not deterred audiences though as the theatre was full this evening.
Unlike Scottish Ballet’s ever popular “The Nutcracker”, “The Snow Queen” is clearly a winter’s tale rather than a “Christmas story” and this production, with choreography by Christopher Hampson and design by Lez Brotherson is a skilful adaptation based on the original Hans Christian Andersen’s classic.
“The Snow Queen” may be a modern ballet, but underneath this surface illusion it has all the elements of a classical ballet story – romance, unrequited love, family feuds, larger than life characters, and dark forces at work as good battles evil.
Bringing all of this to life from the moment we are introduced to this fantasy world through a huge broken magical mirror are Constance Devernay-Laurence (The Snow Queen) and Alice Kawalek (The Summer Princess/Lexi). It is this background story of two sisters at odds with each other in the Snow Queen’s palace and broken shards of an enchanted mirror (and what it revealed) that set the scene for everything that is to follow in this story.
Two very different sisters, and two very different dancers in very different roles. Here Alice Kawalek takes on the human identity of thief/pickpocket Lexi with much of her choreography fitting around her scenes with crowds and Romany gypsies which, when combined with the very different distinctive colour palette of her costume and her warmth as a character, always marks her out in sharp contrast to her sister “The Snow Queen”
The Snow Queen is everything that you would expect her to be, cold, regal and aloof, and Constance Devernay-Laurence brings all of these qualities to this role and all of this is emphasised by very distinctive choreography and costume design. This role seems to have been tailor-made for Constance as it gives her the perfect opportunity to show why she is one of Scottish Ballet’s principal dancers. As well as the obvious technical ballet skills, this role also requires enormous physical strength for some of these moves and Constance is always making it all look effortless and graceful.
There is another story interweaving with the lives of the Snow Queen and Summer Princess, the romance of Gerda (Roseanna Leney) and Kai (Jerome Barnes) and together they are a dance combination that I hope to see more of in coming productions, as both have the expressive qualities needed to bring these types of roles into life.
Since I first saw this production in 2019, both Christopher Hampson and Lez Brotherson have re-visited this work and “tweaked” it a little. Some changes are very hard to see, others are more obvious, but do they make “The Snow Queen” better? The answer to that is probably a yes overall as, although some of the darker elements of this story are now softened and brightened in some places, this has made the whole production a more positive story overall. Do children still want a little of the darkness that is in these original fairy tales? Perhaps.
Is the Snow Queen really evil? I never think so in this story as her actions are guided by very different and very personal motives, some even protective of her sister the Summer Princess.
“The Snow Queen” is a magical work in its own right that relies on so many different creative talents to come together, and this enchanted world onstage of shattered mirror glass, reflections, snow and ice creates a perfect setting for Scottish Ballet’s dancers and Rimsky-Korsakov’s music.
Review by Tom King © 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com