Travel Trip – Nutcracker, IMF Cinema in Ondara

Nutcracker

A Christmas treat with Clara and her Nutcracker doll, dancing mice, toy soldiers, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Handsome Prince, a Magician, and Kingdom of Sweets all danced to some of Tchaikovsky’s most recognisable music.

Wednesday 10 December

This is a live relay direct from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Loosely based on a story by Hoffmann, the ballet begins in the 19th-century German home of the Stahlbaums, where they are hosting a Christmas party. Clara is given an enchanted Nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. As midnight strikes, she creeps downstairs to find a magical adventure awaiting her and her doll.

• Clara – a young girl
• Dr Stahlbaum – her father
• Mrs Stahlbaum – her mother
• Fritz – her brother
• Herr Drosselmeyer – a relation, a magician
• Hans-Peter/The Nutcracker – Herr Drosselmeyer’s newphew, trapped inside a Nutcracker doll
• Harlequin, Columbine, Soldier and Vivandière – Dolls that Herr Drosselmeyer brings to life
• Mouse King – Clara and the Nutcracker battle the Mouse King
• The Sugar Plum Fairy – ruler of The Kingdom of Sweets
• Her Prince – ruler of The Kingdom of Sweets

ACT I: CHRISTMAS EVE

When Drosselmeyer is invited to entertain the guests at a Christmas party that his friends, the Stahlbaums, are giving, he decides that this could well be the opportunity he has been looking for.

Their daughter, Clara, is a little younger than Hans-Peter, who is magically imprisoned in the Nutcracker. What better time than Christmas, when the mice are busy stealing the leftovers, for a confrontation between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker? He decides to put the Nutcracker in the tender care of Clara and makes a special Christmas Angel to guide her through her task.

ACT II: THE KINGDOM OF SWEETS

When all the guests have departed and the house is asleep, Clara, in search of the Nutcracker, creeps downstairs and discovers Drosselmeyer waiting for her. He draws her into his own special world of fantasy where time is suspended, and exerts all his powers to transform the living room into a great battlefield and summons the Mouse King. In the ensuing fight between the mice and the toy soldiers the Nutcracker defeats the Mouse King, but only through the intervention of Clara, who, out of compassion, saves the Nutcracker’s life. Transformed into his real self, he dances with Clara and they find themselves in The Land of Snow. Drosselmeyer then sends them on a magic journey to the Sugar Garden in The Kingdom of Sweets where they meet The Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince.

Freed at last from his imprisonment inside the Nutcracker, Hans-Peter recounts to The Sugar Plum Fairy his great adventure and how Clara saved his life. They then join in a magnificent entertainment put on by Drosselmeyer to honour them for their bravery.

Returning to reality, Clara runs out into the street in search of Drosselmeyer and encounters a strangely familiar young man, while back in his workshop Drosselmeyer prays that his efforts will be rewarded. His nephew returns; the spell has indeed been broken.

The performance lasts about 2 hours 20 minutes, including one interval. Act I is 50 minutes long, the interval 30 minutes and Act II 50 minutes.

Details for pick up in Javea

18:15 Interiors

18:30 MasyMas N332

**Please ask if you would like to be picked up/dropped off at the bus station.

Estrella Travel will drop us off outside the main entrance to the Shopping centre and pick-up at the same spot at 11:30.

It is a late finish so please make your way as quickly as possible through the shopping centre to the main entrance for the bus.

The tickets are numbered. I will have the tickets in advance and distribute them once we’re all on the bus.

For those who don’t know the cinema in the shopping centre it is located on the 2nd floor, opposite McDonalds, with an escalator up to the box office.

Please put my email address travel.julie@u3ajavea.com in your contact list or make a point of checking your spam folder. I have had several occasions recently where folks have missed trips because they haven’t seen my reminders.