As Vesa Tonova says, the Nutcracker, to be staged on 12 March at City Mark Art Centre is “a message from small and grown-up children addressed to small and grown-up children”. The prima ballerina of the Sofia Opera is founder of the “First Bulgarian Ballet”, together with Victor Rakovski (management and human resources), Yosif Geron (attorney at law), as well as several professional actors and musicians. And they are opening their first season with Nutcracker. The blend of theatre, music and ballet offers a different look at the classical ballet by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

“I turned to children as an audience with the idea of making these forms of art more comprehensible to children, of showing them the origins of modern shows,” says Vesa Tonova, producer and choreographer, who also stars in the show. “To make it more fun for us, the people taking part, and for the children, an idea came to me to have the fairytale characters themselves enact the most important facts in the life of its author E.T.A. Hoffmann, of the composer Tchaikovsky, of choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov – the first authors of the Nutcracker for the stage. Petipa is the man who created ballet art in the latter half of the 19th century. We shall continue to add elements of their biographies every time we stage Nutcracker in the future. This will help us show the children’s audience that time doesn’t matter, that the people who wrote the fairytales and the music for them were adults, but that the child in them had never gone away, that they had a rich imagination, a pure heart and a lot of love of art and that they have left us genuine masterpieces. The children who watch Nutcracker are not always familiar with the libretto. That is why I decided to include young actress Silvia Stanoeva who tells the story.”

Young professional actors, ballet dancers and children from art schools star in the leading roles. Vesa Tonova:

“The participants are all different ages – from the youngest, aged 4,5,6 from the “Balance” ballet studio with pedagogue Sirma Ivanova, to students from the National School of Dance Art, as well as soloists from the Sofia Opera and young actors who are just starting on their career. We also included students from the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music. One of the girls from “Balance” ballet studio goes to the music school, so she introduced me to several other children whose professionalism and eagerness to perform I have come to admire. I hope that will be something they will be able to keep for life! The audience, whatever their age appreciates their performances. Obviously, Daniela Vaskova who is their tutor has been able to give them the love and self-assurance that has enabled them to develop their pieces so thoroughly. To begin with I didn’t know them and I was hoping they could at least say what they would be performing without any stage fright. But as it turned out, they are very artistic and have no problem performing on stage. They play the brother and sister of the lead characters Marie and Fritz and perform pieces from Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album. And it turned out really well because all of the music is by Tchaikovsky, so emotional, so well suited to ballet. Even the staff at City Mark Centre got carried away, everyone liked the show – from the sound engineers to the director, Hristo Kirov. That was how we found our place in the programme of the cultural centre. I hope the show will grow more and more popular.”

The audio file features:

- Waltz of the flowers;

- Four seasons.

English version: Milena Daynova