"Actor: National Philharmonic"

• Nutcracker | DVD | (31/10/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Schiaccianoci (Lo) / Nutcracker

• Sleeping Beauty | DVD | (05/04/2000) from £29.68   |  Saving you £-4.69 (-18.80%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty is here transformed by the masterful contemporary choreographer Mats Ek into an allegory of repression, love and emotional maturity set in a bleak, stylised postmodern limbo which is both chilling and, just occasionally, bleakly humorous. Traditionalists may be flinching already, but this is a ballet which has always lent itself to this kind of treatment. Indeed, what many will think of as the "traditional" interpretation is in fact Diaghilev's forward-looking production of 1921, which had sets and costumes by Bakst and re-instrumentation by Stravinsky. Ek's Princess inhabits a world seemingly out of Fritz Lang, where Carabosse is a drug-dealing low-life and the Fairies are a gaggle of sneering girlies. Ek removes his work from the classical tradition to a large degree, but what goes in its place is a highly disciplined yet tactile and gut-wrenchingly emotive approach, conveying both the external and internal narratives of the work with unfailing conviction. --Roger Thomas