News

24.10.2013

Jerome Kaplan: nostalgia for Art Nouveau

It was with great pleasure that I accepted the offer to work on The Nutcracker with Nacho Duato. It was in St. Petersburg that this ballet was born and here that it was first performed. So for an artist, there is no better place to present your own version. I have worked on The Nutcracker three times before, twice with choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot. We even staged one performance at the circus in Monaco.
I am very familiar with the version of The Nutcracker that is performed at the Mariinsky Theatre as it is the same one that is staged at the Théâtre du Châtelet. I thought it would be interesting to set the action during the years immediately preceding the Russian Revolution. I consider this a very interesting period, a time when society was undergoing drastic changes. The year 1914 was a turning point for Russia, for Europe, and for the whole world, a year of clear transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.

The setting for The Nutcracker is a bourgeois family home on Christmas Eve. We see a young girl dreaming about the Nutcracker. But before that happens we witness domestic scenes — a festive evening at a rich family’s home. At that time, Art Nouveau was in full bloom in Russia. I studied this style in great detail, and looked for similarities in the lines and aesthetics of Art Nouveau in Russia and in other countries. My great-grandfather was interested in this style; he was a set designer and part of the Ecole de Nancy Art Nouveau movement in France. He worked with Jacques Majorelle and Emile Gallé, the founders of the school, in the 1900s. My family knows a lot about this period, and this is why I am always interested in drawing from it too.

The years leading up to the First World War were a turning point in history. On the one hand there is Tchaikovsky and on the other, practically modern times. They are both close. The costumes are not greatly different in style from those of the nineteenth century, but you can already foresee the emergence of more modern, contemporary choreographers such as Nacho Duato. As a set designer, I have to find the equilibrium, a balance between the past and the present, between dance and music. Whatever we think, ballet is, above all, music and dance. I have always considered that in my trade, the most important thing is to create a suitable ‘package’, a setting that will bring out the value of the music and dance in the best way possible. This is no simple task. There are some things which are just beautiful, which look great, but they must let the choreography shine through. Based on this principle, I looked for a new take on The Nutcracker.

The first scene is set inside Masha’s house (or Clara’s, as the character is sometimes called), a rich interior in the Art Nouveau style, but also discreet and full of light. After that we are taken to the dream dimension, into another world. In The Nutcracker it is always difficult to create an aesthetic transition between the two worlds; I chose the aesthetics of papier découpé (paper cut-outs). It suits both reality and the New Year’s fairy tale. Each act must have its own character, the difference between the two worlds must be felt, but it must be within the same aesthetic boundaries. Papier découpé has a very childlike quality to it; it is very different from reality. It is a strong aesthetic stance that defines the whole direction of the ballet. If, in The Nutcracker, there is no substantial difference between the first act and the subsequent scenes in the world of dreams, it affects the whole ballet. It is extremely important to distinguish the two worlds — reality and fantasy.

In the second act, papier découpé props play an important role: they help to accentuate the spirit of each dance. The fan appears during the Spanish Dance; the umbrella is huge compared with the size of the character; the snake, or oriental dragon, which makes its way around the stage during the Chinese Dance, is also made of paper with gold-plated flanks. The second act feels significantly different from the first. Another reason I chose Art Nouveau is that the action is set in St. Petersburg, and I have noticed that Russians are nostalgic for the pre-revolutionary era. Foreigners who come here also sense this and want to experience it. It would be great to go back to that time in a theatrical production, and I think Tchaikovsky’s music is very fitting for the era.