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There's also the fact that the company, freshly rebuilt with nearly half the dancers newly recruited in the last year, is seen very much as a vehicle for presenting contemporary work. So how would it all look - could the dancers do it justice and send the audience home burbling and planning to return next year? And to pile on the uncertainty this was Page's first full-length production and a piece that also needed to talk to those who may have struggled with the unabashed modernism of Scottish Ballet's re-launched, contemporary style.

Anyway, like most good fairytales, things of course are never as dark as they may look and the family audience at the premiere last Wednesday seemed to have a good time. The story is indeed changed with Marie (Clara in many productions) being older than normal and effectively becoming the Sugar Plum as she grows up - something in which she is immeasurably helped by Drosselmeyer (Jarkko Lehmus looking very cool and controlled) with a sense of fun if somewhat suggestive taste. In this production Act 2 follows through on the Act 1 story rather than just being a good dancing knees-up in rather splendid isolation. The programme notes go on at length but essentially there are still good guys, bad guys, mice, princes and a transformation scene. And a dominatrix of a governess who is also Dame Mouserink (Queen of the Mice), played with much malice by Diana Loosemore.
 

Patricia Hines and Diana Loosmore as The Bad Snowflakes
in Scottish Ballet's The Nutcracker,
sponsored by Bank Of Scotland
© Bill Cooper

What really unites this production is the designs of Page's frequent collaborator, Antony McDonald (assisted by Juliette Blondelle and Michelle May). The costumes are particularly gorgeous - most witty for the Act 1 party and beautiful flower designs for the Waltz of the Flowers in Act 2. 1920's German interiors are a little austere perhaps, for those raised on Victorian Nutcrackers, but the transformation is neatly if unexpectedly achieved - just don't look at the tree! Overall I think the show is a design and production triumph.

The choreography jollies things along and thankfully dance is never very far away from the surface - Page never gets too engrossed in the story-telling. Page's movement has always contained great fleeting moments and you can see that here too, but they don't dominate or command. The dance is that - anybody looking for endless relays of pointe shoes won't always find them and when you do (as say in the dance of the Snowflakes) it's not always done with the conviction you might see from a more traditional ballet company. It's no different from those who love Ballett Frankfurt seeing the Royal Ballet (RB) dance their work and thinking it rather different. Sometimes these things matter, sometimes they don't. Irek Mukhamedov, the revered ex-Bolshoi and RB star, has been up working with Scottish Ballet and Page is also to be congratulated for deciding to keep the original Lev Ivanov grand pas de deux. Page loves ballet of that there can be no doubt, though he is not especially plugged into the mainstream, and it will be interesting to see if he wins the substantial audience for the new that exists (rightly or wrongly!) for the traditional.

While Page's company are still finding their feet in something so essentially traditional (albeit changed for them) it was heartening to see Mara Galeazzi (guesting from RB) step out as a 19th century ballerina with Jose Perez as her Prince and do the Ivanov ballet thing. They looked a million dollars, the choreography time-honoured and assured. Absolutely right to keep it in and a reminder of why 'ballet ballet' is so loved.
 

Jose Oduardo Perez and Mara Galeazzi as The Prince and Marie
in Scottish Ballet's The Nutcracker,
sponsored by Bank Of Scotland
© Bill Cooper

This is a fine-looking Nutcracker with much thought going into the overall production. The audience was happy, although it doesn't perhaps induce the same warm affection as Matthew Bourne's (also much changed) Nutcracker! or Peter Wright's (very traditional) production for Birmingham. It's a hit that people will return to for its fun, visual richness and possibly also to un-fathom a bit more of the plot and get more of the jokes. The company have 50 performances of Nutcracker this season and I'd love to see them at the other end of the run when they are fully settled in to a work every bit as important to them as the contemporary repertoire.