How the Snow Queen was turned into a dramatic Scottish Ballet spectacle

This is particularly true of the beautiful tale of The Snow Queen, by Danish bard Hans Christian Andersen. The epic story of loss, adventure and the redemptive power of the innocence of children is now being transformed into a new dance work by Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Christopher Hampson.

In Andersen’s narrative, the evil powers of the trolls take a little boy named Kai from his family and his beloved friend Gerda. In an ill-fated attempt to take their wicked mirror (which reflects only the bad and ugly in people) up to heaven, the trolls drop the looking glass, which smashes sending tiny splinters around the world.

Some of these splinters get in Kai’s eyes and heart, turning him against dear Gerda and into the arms of the Snow Queen, who spirits him away to her frozen realm. As many a parent of young children will be able to tell you, Andersen’s tale, with its female hero, Gerda, forms the basis for Frozen, Disney’s phenomenally successful CGI animated film from 2013.

It is believed that the character of the cold-hearted Snow Queen was inspired by the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, with whom Andersen fell in love, but who did not reciprocate the writer’s affections. Hampson’s version is somewhat kinder to the titular monarch, making her kidnapping of Kai part of her desperate attempt to be reunited with her sister Lexi (a character created by Hampson, and based loosely on The Little Robber Girl from Andersen’s story).

When I meet Hampson at Scottish Ballet’s HQ on the southside of Glasgow, his enthusiasm for Andersen’s tale is palpable. “There’s darkness to The Snow Queen,” he observes.

“I think it’s exciting for young people to explore, in the safe environment of a theatre, what it’s like when a story doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go, when’s there’s jeopardy there.

“With The Snow Queen, we obviously have our hero, Gerda. However, the Snow Queen herself is not actually that nice. I hope we’ve spelt out why.”

The director believes that children like the moral ambiguities of stories in which heroic characters, or their allies, are rough diamonds. “Gerda’s in a position of having to trust someone who’s a pickpocket.

“I think kids enjoy that. Should you be trusting someone who doesn’t live by the rules? Do you always live by the rules? Have you ever told a lie?”

THESE are the kind of questions that Hampson hopes emerge in his ballet, inspired, he says, by “that Roald Dahl-esque environment of children’s stories”. Indeed, ballet lovers may discover that the great Welsh-Norwegian author of such classics as James and the Giant Peach and Matilda is a discernible influence on Scottish Ballet’s new work.

“I read all the Dahl books as a child,” Hampson remembers. “I devoured them and loved them.

“I can still replay scenes from them in my head. I always liked the dubious character, not the baddie or the goodie, but the one that helps the hero.”

If Dahl has a bearing on Hampson’s thinking, not least where the character of Lexi is concerned, the narrative drive still comes very much from Andersen. “Essentially you’ve got two stories colliding,” the director says.

“You’ve got the Snow Queen, who is just trying to get her sister back. In my version, that’s her purpose for the entire evening (and she does do anything, she kidnaps Kai in attempt to lure her sister back).

“For her part, Gerda will do anything to get Kai back. She has to trust this pickpocket, this robber, to get there. Obviously the two stories do collide right at the end.”

In addition to Hampson’s subtly altered narrative, the Scottish Ballet show will boast music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (drawn, primarily, from his famous opera The Snow Maiden) and sets and costumes by the award-winning designer Lez Brotherston.

Hampson is quick to acknowledge an evolution in his approach to choreography. The Snow Queen is, he says, much more driven by the narrative, and less by his response to the music, than his earlier ballets.

“The more mature I get in my choreographic career, the less I’m wedded to the choreography being driven by the music,” he explains. “In some of my earlier work I chose specific pieces of music that inspired me to create something from that sound.”

Although, the director says, music continues to be “an engine” in his work, there has been a re-ordering of his priorities where his creative process is concerned. “Now, more and more, especially with the narrative work, I’m letting the story be driven by ideas.”

This “story first” approach led to a very productive collaboration with musical director Richard Honner (for whom The Snow Queen will be, after 33 years as head of music, the last major project for Scottish Ballet). “Rimsky-Korsakov was decided upon. So, I knew what the sound environment would be”, says Hampson.

“I left it up to Richard to bring me offerings of mood, suggestions of themes, colour and sound. It’s a highly collaborative process.

“I would say that Richard’s pretty much the architect of the score. However, like with Hansel and Gretel, there are some key bits of music that I found.” In particular, the artistic director tells me, act two of The Snow Queen will open with a Hampson selection – namely, Rimsky-Korsakov’s celebrated Capriccio Espagnol.

The purpose of all of this careful artistic construction, of course, is to create a new ballet that will leave an imprint on the hearts and minds of audience members young and old. Indeed, more than any other season, the Christmas ballet will be an introduction to live dance for many people.

Hampson admits to a certain apprehension about choreographing a new work for Christmas time. “The Christmas family ballet has to land, it can’t miss,” he comments.

“It’s what I call ‘entry level’ for a lot of people. It’s not just children who will be seeing a ballet for the first time.

“For a lot of adults, the Christmas show will be their first experience of ballet.

Parents feel they need to take their kids.

“Or, if you’re an uncle, or a godparent, or you have nieces and nephews, it’s something to take the children to. It’s an extravaganza, it’s a theatrical experience.”

Consequently, creating a new choreography for Christmas is, Hampson says, “a really weighty responsibility”. He knows from “deep experience” about the great satisfactions of a successful Christmas ballet and the terrible disappointments of a show that doesn’t come off.

“I’ve seen a Christmas ballet land and I’ve seen it not land as well. I’ve got a sense for it, I think.

“I’m aware that when children are watching a work of art they expect to be treated as intelligently as adults. Their expectations are no less than those of adults.

“In fact, their expectations are likely to be higher, because you can take children a lot further. And, if they don’t like it, they let you know.”

Hampson took over the artistic directorship of Scottish Ballet from his acclaimed predecessor, Ashley Page, in 2012. He created Hansel and Gretel, his excellent first original work for the company, in 2013.

There has, the director says, been an evolution in his relationship with the company, as well as in his own artistic process, in the intervening six years. “It has been really rewarding recognising my journey with Scottish Ballet”, he says.

“When I did Hansel and Gretel I was a new artistic director, working with a team that hadn’t been totally constructed by me. Some people preceded me, and some had come with me.

“At that time we were testing and sensing how we were all going to work together. This time around it feels like I’m back in my groove.

“I feel like I did back when I was a freelance choreographer. I know the dancers well.

“I’m back into my shorthand in the studio, keeping the atmosphere very fun and creative. It feels good to be back in the studio that way.”

Following my interview with Hampson, I was fortunate to be invited to sit in on rehearsals for The Snow Queen. It was a wonderfully illuminating experience.

The relaxed, confident and attentive relationship that Scottish Ballet’s dancers have with their director is evident immediately. In particular, one can see very clearly what Hampson means by his “shorthand” in directing his dancers.

Relations in the studio are almost instinctive, to the point where the briefest instruction to a dancer, to end a movement a fraction to the left or the right, leads to that movement being corrected almost instantly. Hampson’s observations are as respectful as they are demanding. The professional, good-natured and precise responses of the dancers flow naturally from a rehearsal room atmosphere that is, paradoxically, both calm and intense.

SITTING in on rehearsals for a short while makes it clear that The Snow Queen will be, first-and-foremost, a classical ballet – although, if Hampson’s Hansel and Gretel is anything to go by, it will have more than a few delightfully modern twists.

I suggest to the artistic director that, under both himself and his predecessor, Ashley Page, the classicism of Scottish Ballet’s repertoire has been infused with the modernism of great 20th-century dance figures such as Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham.

That is, Hampson says, a “fair description”. “I think when Ash was here he was able to put down those foundations of challenging an audience to look at classical work through a different lens.

“What’s been great in my tenure is to be able to build on that and to say ‘now let’s start looking at the really different types of movement that other creative voices can bring.’ What I attempt to do is ensure that we’ve got a really varied artistic diet, not just for the company, but for our audiences.”

Hampson is pleased to have had the opportunity, in 2019, to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary. His message, at the close of this golden jubilee year is very much a forward looking one.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, in terms of pushing the envelope and pushing the boundaries. It’s about doing it with our audiences, taking them with us on the journey.”

For tour details for The Snow Queen, visit: scottishballet.co.uk