Dance
Marquee TV's exclusive film of The Nutcracker from the New York City Ballet can be seen from 11 December until 3 January 2021. George Balanchine's version first premiered in 1954 and has been a perennial favourite for more than 65 years in New York City, until the 2020 season when performances were cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nutcracker was filmed during the company's 2019 season at the Lincoln Center in New York with Maria Kowroski as the Sugarplum Fairy, Tyler Angle as her Cavalier, and Megan Fairchild as Dewdrop. Tickets are available from 27 November priced £23.99.
Other ballets new to Marquee TV this Christmas season include The Scottish Ballet's production of The Snow Queen and Ballet Lorent's children's tale The Lost Happy Endings.
The Snow Queen was the jewel in the crown of Scottish Ballet's 50th anniversary year. It is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's tale, which was also the basis for the film Frozen, with the Snow Queen's palace and the icy fragments of an enchanted mirror. The production was filmed live in December 2019 at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre.
The Lost Happy Endings by Ballet Lorent is a family show with all the favourite fairytale characters – Snow White, Pinocchio, Goldilocks and Cinderella. It's narrated by Joanna Lumley.
The platform is also offering the Bolshoi's Sleeping Beauty The Royal Ballet's Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty and Rhapsody.
Music
Members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra's brass section got together to perform their Christmas Special in front of the Claridge's Hotel Christmas tree. They play all the season favourites from “O Come, All Ye Faithful” to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. The concert will be available from Saturday 19 December at 8pm GMT.
Theatre
In the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Love's Labour's Won, Shakespeare's comic romance begins in autumn 1918, with a group of soldiers returning from the trenches. As memories of conflict give way to a life of parties and masked balls, the classic tale plays out amidst the brittle high spirits of a postwar house party.
New works
Marquee TV has shared plans to become involved in the creation of digital work, and the platform is in discussion with several dance and opera companies to film new and reimagined works during and after Covid-19. At a time when the industry must explore ways of innovating and engaging audiences in new, sustainable ways, the platform is working to support the ecosystem by augmenting live performance through considered on-demand content while at the same time supporting the artists that make it.
Top photo: New York City Ballet's The Nutcracker © Erin Baiano
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
