English National Ballet has swapped Russian sweets in its production of the Nutcracker for Ukrainian treats in a confected ballet row, The Telegraph can reveal.
Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet, which is being staged over Christmas, traditionally includes a Russian dance with a candy cane theme – but the new English production has taken these out.
Billing for the show makes no mention of the standard Russian candies, but provides a detailed list of delicacies that will feature. Unlike historical performances, these include Ukrainian poppy seed rolls called makivnyk.
It follows a period of hand wringing in the arts world in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022, which led to some classical ensembles boycotting Tchaikovsky’s music.
Amid a rift in the classical world, the London Philharmonic announced a programme packed with Russian music, saying that cancelling the likes of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov “fuels Putin’s propaganda”.
English National Ballet has not commented on its alterations to Tchaikovsky’s ballet.
The company appears to have updated other confections which feature in The Nutcracker, which follows the lead, Clara, as she rescues an enchanted Nutcracker doll and travels to the Land Of Sweets.
In this land, she is feted with dances from characters representing desirable treats from the 19th century.
In the new product, instead of merely the traditional chocolate from Spain dancers will embody Spanish “turron”, a type of nougat.
The Chinese dance historically revolving around tea instead involves tanghulu, candied hawthorn berries.
There is also great cultural specificity in the dance which once sought to represent Arabian coffee, and in the new production dancers embody “sahlab”, Egyptian orchid root milk with cinnamon.
There are also dances by marzipan-zwiebelflöten – German marzipan sweets which are traditionally portrayed as French – liquorice allsorts, buttercream roses, and the ballet’s famed sugar plums.
This updated and more specific set of confections are one of a number of tweaks made to the ballet, which runs at the London Coliseum until Jan 12.
Clara is shown dispatching villains herself, rather than with the help of the prince, and in an early scene is depicted taking inspiration from a group of Suffragettes.
These alterations come following a series of changes made in the classical music world to accommodate modern sensibilities.
In 2022, the Royal Opera’s House staged a new Madama Butterfly which was the result of a year-long consultation to ensure that Puccini’s 1904 opera, about a Japanese geisha exploited by an American officer, was as inoffensive and non-stereotyping as possible.
In 2021, the Royal Ballet’s own Nutcracker production reduced the number of female dancers in a dance of magical Arabian sweets, in order that the performance was less suggestive of a “harem”.