In November and December 2024 Northern Ballet revive Carl Davis’ A Christmas Carol as part of their seasonal tour to Sheffield, Hull, Norwich, Nottingham, and Leeds. Massimo Morricone’s choreography, a company mainstay since it debuted in 1992, is designed by Lez Brotherston.
Taking musical inspiration from Dickens’ title, Davis draws extensively on festive favourites in his 90-minute score for chamber orchestra, which Northern Ballet present in the 2-act version from 2019. We Wish You a Merry Christmas launches the piece, as Scrooge’s niece and nephew try and foster some Christmas spirit. It blends with Ding Dong Merrily at the ballet’s close, as a transformed Scrooge bustles about to makes festive arrangements for the Cratchit family, before Deck the Halls brings the piece to a joyful conclusion.
Elsewhere Davis’ scoring is characteristically vivid. An eerie saxophone solo, with spiky harmonies suggestive of Prokofiev, paints a picture of those who run out their earthly lives without a thought for others, in a lesson for the miser from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. A series of woodwind solos evoke the inadequate flickering fire in Scrooge’s chilly establishment in a melancholy waltz, before Bob Cratchit happens upon a much more cheerful brazier in the street. This scene, an addition to Dickens’ scenario, draws on the colourful Provençal carol Patapan, with an exotic array of percussion leading a march that turns into a whirling dance in the streets of the City of London.
A Christmas Carol has proven one of Davis’ biggest hits for the ballet stage, receiving over 350 performances since its 1992 premiere. Aside from numerous revivals by Northern Ballet over the years, Massimo Morricone’s choreography appeared with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, where it toured nationally in 2014. It was also choreographed in 2019 by Rinus Sprong and Thom Stuart for De Dutch Don’t Dance Division in The Hague, whose staging was revived in 2022.
Davis’ other commissions from Northern Ballet Theatre included the award-winning A Simple Man (1988) and Lippizaner (1989), both choreographed by Gillian Lynne, and Liaisons Amoureuses (1989), a ballet after Jacques Offenbach.
In August Shanghai Ballet revived Davis’ The Lady of the Camelias, his 2008 work after Alexandre Dumas’ novel for two performances at Henan Arts Centre in Zhengzhou City. In December 2024 the company mount the ballet, choreographed by Davis’ longstanding collaborator Derek Deane, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane; Davis’ lush 100-minute score for large orchestra effortlessly conjures the music of Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Prokofiev.