Tickets bought as a suprise for partner who desperately wanted to see the Nutcracker. I love and have spent alot of time in the theatre but never watched a professional ballet and therefore was very excited. Travelled two hours to see show and was sadly disappointed in time, money and effort that I spent. Although tickets were reasonably priced, with three tickets and other costs involved such as food and travel; it really wasnt worth the money. The stage scenery was extremely amateur and so was most of the costumes! You need to get a better set and costume designers. The lighting crew couldnt find the dancers with their spot light, most of the time, obviously half asleep and ate too much a Reza's down the road. We were sat on the upper circle which in this theatre is two storeys up and not the highest point, but we could still hear the graceful ballet dancers making a banging noise as they landed on their wooden toed ballet shoes, the smoke machine making loud hissing noises, the choreographer counting dancers in in Russian and then English ordering them "left a bit, right a bit", and NO ORCHESTRA??!! Which to be quite frank was half the problem, as the piped in music wasnt of a sufficient sound quality or level of volume, and if it had of been, then it would have masked these production, backstage errors and made it the magical experience that it should have been. So my advice is turn the music up in future!! Magic is in the music- create an atmosphere! Also note, that audience sitting at the sides can see into the wings backstage if you knock the curtain and then dont replace it!! Very amateur overall. Apart from that, I think the dancers were wonderful, and are obviously skilled at their craft, and this is the only reason why I didnt complain at the time. My seven year old daughter didnt however notice the errors that we did as adults and declared it as "the best night of her life"- Ballet lessons will probably be on the Xmas list for her, but sadly not on my partners list, who is sadly now put off watching further Ballets and had originally planned to return for Swan Lake, but now wont be bothering.
The Journal Tyne Theatre Newcastle @
- Newcastle Upon Tyne @
- Sat 20 Nov 2010 @
Favourite moment: Dancers, especially Clara and the prince who were exceptionally good. @