Alberta Ballet’s opulent Nutcracker sets don’t travel light

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      When Alberta Ballet’s opulent production of The Nutcracker arrives here, it won’t be by snowy sleigh ride or on the wings of sugarplum fairies. No, the practical matter is the massive, $1.5-million production travels by trucks.

      “It takes three tractor-trailers—that’s as big as a rock ’n’ roll show, if not a teeny bit bigger,” says Alberta Ballet’s director of production and touring, Harry Paterson, speaking over the phone from Calgary. “We have to bring scenery, costumes, lighting effects, rehearsal clothes, pointe shoes… It’s probably our biggest show.”

      It may not be a very magical mode of transportation, but there’s a true art to the way the pieces are meticulously packed—special boxes to keep tutus flat, disassembled set pieces, carefully rolled hand-painted backdrops, and pointe-shoe containers, all sorted into tight spaces by computer so they don’t move around on their long journey from Alberta to the West Coast. Paterson admits the inside of the trucks can be a surreal sight, complete with rat masks and wigs.

      It takes someone who knows every detailed need of the ballet, and Paterson definitely fits the bill. A dancer since age nine, he’s concentrated on production and tours for several decades and knows his stuff.

      “It’s all highly specialized, but I’ve been doing it for donkey’s years,” the 63-year-old veteran says with a laugh, adding: “There are not a lot of us guys left.”

      As specialized as his field is, this particular, imperial-Russia-themed Nutcracker—with its Snow Tsarina, Cossack-hatted rats, Arctic wolves, onion domes, and Fabergé-egg gilding—requires even more specific logistics. Take the atmospheric end to the ballet’s first act: in this version, dancing Snowflakes in long, sparkling tutus twirl onto the stage, one by one, like feathery crystals caught in the wind, under gently falling snow. Paterson reveals that the small bond-paper pieces arrive in big bags that look like pillowcases, carefully rigged above the stage on a teeter-totterlike structure that allows slower or quicker release. But getting the snow to fall is just half the job. “As soon as the curtain goes down, they sweep and vacuum it up. We recycle it, of course, and the guys sit there during Act 2 siphoning and sifting it and getting all the nails and other stuff out of it so it can be used again for the next show.”

      It’s a huge amount of work for one short, magical scene. The same goes for the beautifully hand-painted, lamplit, turn-of-the-last-century street scene that opens this Nutcracker. “It’s just gorgeous,” raves Paterson, who gets to see it all close up. “It’s not like paint-by-numbers; nobody outlines this stuff and fills it in. And it’s only there for a few minutes and it flies away and you never see it again. But that’s ballet, isn’t it?”

      The set was a massive investment for the company eight years ago, and Paterson has an annual budget of more than $25,000 to repair it and the costumes. “This [the sets and costumes] is standing up really well,” he says. “It was built all over North America.…There was not one shop that could take on this whole project. We built it with the intention of it lasting 10 to 15 years.”

      It all comes together, miraculously, on the day of unpacking, dress rehearsal, and opening night. Not only do the two dozen stagehands get sets in place, but about 65 local ballet-school children practise for their first time with the 30-plus pros, and the live orchestra tunes up with the dancers. “We call it the day from hell,” Paterson jokes. “Everybody starts work at 8 a.m. and doesn’t stop, except for a lunch break, until the end of the performance that night.”

      The team has it down to such a fine craft, however, that it rides as smoothly as the Snow Tsarina’s sleigh, creating otherworldly wonder with the kind of artful, old-fashioned magic that doesn’t come from digital projections or other tech-heavy effects.

      “With children, even in this day and age, I’m surprised it still works,” Paterson muses. “It’s low-tech and it’s pretty, too. [Designer] Zack Brown built this production to be extremely colourful in itself. It’s candy to the eye.”

      Candy that’s as carefully packed and unpacked as a Fabergé egg.

      Alberta Ballet presents The Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Tuesday (December 29) to December 31.

      Follow Janet Smith on Twitter @janetsmitharts.

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