From 28 February Stephen Warbeck’s Peter Pan (2004/rev.2005) is in rep at the Alabama Ballet, choreographed by their Artistic Director Christopher Stuart. It receives six performances at the BJCC Concert Hall in Birmingham, AL, closing 9 March.
Warbeck has been celebrated for his music for Billy Elliot and Shakespeare in Love. The 122-minute ballet in two acts is scored for an orchestra of double winds, horns, trumpets, single trombone, percussion, harp, keyboard and strings. It contains many highlights – a playful, scherzo-like sequence depicting Peter and his shadow, led off by sinuous clarinet; Tinker Bell is summoned with skittering woodblock, glockenspiel, tambourine, and scurrying strings. A boisterous, brassy dance depicts life on board the Jolly Roger; a pair of woodblocks evoke the ticking clock inside the belly of the mighty crocodile. Listen to Warbeck’s score, recorded by the Northern Ballet Sinfonia, here.
Christopher Stuart’s choreography was previously mounted in 2023 by Charlotte Ballet at the Knight Theatre. Peter Pan was created in 2004 for Northern Ballet, choreographed by David Nixon, and revived in 2014. The spectacular production made extravagant use of aerial elements, with dancers on wires, as Peter, Wendy, and the children escape Edwardian London to Neverland, as well as puppetry to represent fairy Tinker Bell, and a corps de ballet of mermaids. Look behind the scenes of Nixon’s production here.