David Hallberg on The Nutcracker
How The Nutcracker inspired a young dancer into a career that would span decades and oceans to become the biggest ballet star in the world.
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23 Oct 2024
At only 11 years old and very new to ballet, David Hallberg decided to try out for a part in Ballet Arizona’s The Nutcracker. And not just any part. He auditioned for the lead role of the Nutcracker Prince.
Although unsuccessful in this first endeavour, the young dancer was given a smaller role in the production. Done and dusted by the end of the battle scene in Act I, David would stay to watch the remainder of the show from the wings each night, transfixed by the dancers’ purpose, focus and reverence. “I became irretrievably enthralled by ballet,” Hallberg wrote in his book A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back.
Seventeen years later David Hallberg was a world-renowned star winging his way to Australia and The Australian Ballet. Then Artistic Director David McAllister had been trying for a while to get Hallberg to come but it wasn’t until 2010 that both the stars and schedules aligned. The Company was reviving Peter Wright’s delectable version of The Nutcracker and Hallberg was thrilled to accept McAllister’s invitation to appear as the Prince.
His American Ballet Theatre colleague Angel Corella had guested with The Australian Ballet in Don Quixote in 1999 and Hallberg had seen a photo from that time. For some reason it set off sparks. Hallberg came to feel a strong attraction to a Company he’d never met in a country he knew nothing about. “How can you explain love?” he asks rhetorically.
“How can you explain love?” — Artistic Director David Hallberg
Things started well when Hallberg was picked up from Melbourne Airport by Michelle Saultry, Head of Artistic Liaison at The Australian Ballet.
“We both remember that day as if it was yesterday,” she says. “I was so nervous. It can be overwhelming if international guests ask intricate questions about ballet that are above my pay grade. David asked, ‘does Melbourne do good coffee?’. I thought, I can answer that question!”
After delving into the important matter of Melbourne’s coffee culture, Hallberg met the Company and soon felt at home, something that doesn’t happen everywhere. “Our guests love the warmth of the Company and how everyone makes them feel at ease,” Saultry says. “It’s in the Company’s DNA. You can’t put a price on that.”
Hallberg’s first visit was unusually long. During his four-week stay – “I would normally do two weeks tops” - he got to meet everyone, including dancers who were then in the most junior ranks and are now Principal Artists, including Ako Kondo, Sharni Spencer and Robyn Hendricks. Hallberg’s Sugar Plum Fairy was Kirsty Martin, now the Company’s Soloist Repetiteur.
Friendships made during that time continue to this day. Hallberg still sees philanthropist Peter Clemenger who, with his late wife Joan, made his Australian debut possible. Hallberg likes to tell Clemenger that he was the one that planted the seeds that would eventually lead to Hallberg’s appointment as artistic director. “He’s quite chuffed by that but it’s the truth.”
To close Season 2024, Hallberg has returned to Wright’s The Nutcracker. It’s the same version he danced back in 2010 and remains a touchstone ballet, the one that inspired an 11-year-old to give his life to this art.
Hallberg wants his dancers to feel that power too. He asks them to lean into the magic, to explore the rich depths of the music – The Nutcracker was Tchaikovsky’s last score for ballet – and to elevate and clarify Petipa’s choreography for everyone who already knows the ballet and everyone who is new to it.
The Australian Ballet hasn’t staged this production for five years, and audiences will be treated to a cast of new faces in important roles – not just Princes, but Sugar Plum fairies, Rose and Snow fairies, Mirlitons and more in a ballet that overflows with opportunities to shine.
Unchanged are the gorgeous John McFarlane designs, which include the famous – or perhaps infamous – Prince’s pink jacket. It’s certainly striking but those who don the item (Hallberg included) seem to have something of a love-hate relationship with it.
He laughs when the subject is raised. “You know, I don’t think the men hate it. At least that’s not the word on the street. It is quite pink, but you know, you can’t be mismatched with your Sugar Plum.”
The Nutcracker plays at Sydney Opera House from 30 November – 18 December 2024