European Companies

A Recap

“Malditos Benditos”
Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg
State Theater
Nuremberg, Germany
July 10, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © J.VallinasMalditos Benditos (“Damned Blessed Ones”) is Goyo Montero’s farewell piece to Nuremberg. After seventeen years as artistic director of the State Theater’s ballet company, the Spaniard will leave for the State Ballet Hanover this autumn to take up the reins Marco Goecke was forced to give up in 2023. Richard Siegal, director of the Cologne-based Ballet of Difference, will succeed Montero in Nuremberg and bring his dancers along. They will merge with their Nuremberg colleagues into the State Theater Nuremberg Ballet of Difference.
Malditos Benditos is the counterpart to Benditos Malditos, Montero’s first creation in Nuremberg in 2008. Many of the intervening twenty-five productions are reflected in Malditos Benditos. Applause blended into the medley of musical snippets and electronic noise as the black curtain rose. The black-suited dancers (costumes by Goyo Montero and Margaux Manns) bowed to the applause of an imaginary audience at the rear stage, framed by a bright red curtain.
3. G.Montero and E.Nunes, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © J.Vallinas 2. Ensemle, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © J.Vallinas The lines of Joaquín Sabina’s poem Benditos Malditos (set to music by Montero’s longstanding collaborator, Owen Belton) accompanied one dancer as he stepped away from the curtain call as if performing in rewind. The following sixteen scenes were related to previous works and, with two exceptions, had new choreographies and contexts. The main connections to Benditos Malditos were the poems of Sabina, a Spanish musician and composer, whom Montero likened to Spain’s Bob Dylan. Montero incorporated many of Sabina’s poems in 2008 and used the five remaining poems for Malditos Benditos which Belton set to music.
4. G.Montero and T.Montero, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada5. T.Montero and ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada The score moreover included other compositions by Belton and music by Ludwig van Beethoven and Miguel Poveda. Tenor Martin Platz, standing on a chair amidst the dancers in one scene, sang a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. (At the premiere and on some evenings, Montero’s son Theo sang the cantata opposite his father, who joined the dancers.) One highlight was the penultimate scene, It’s Alright, Ma, set to the eponymous song by Bob Dylan. Each of the company’s twenty-four dancers had solos in this song, and everyone went full throttle as if performing for the last time. A purple curtain provided a gala atmosphere, which some slapstick lightened.
7. G.Schillaci, C.Pearson, J.Hackett, M.Vieira, J.Ariës, and A.Uzunova; “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada6. A.Uzunova and E.Mannella, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.QuezadaOverall, though, the music created a sense of both serenity and melancholy. Only the scene, Steppenwolf (relating to Montero’s eponymous 2023 choreography), had an aggressive soundtrack. Its text (dealing with “savage deeds,” “hatred,” “decay,” and “death”) was recited by a monotonous computer voice and simultaneously seemed to hurtle toward the audience in huge white letters via a backdrop video. It overshadowed the group dance on the front stage.

8. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © J.Vallinas9. S.Tozzi and ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada Although I have seen some of Montero’s productions over the past years, I’m not familiar with his oeuvre and hardly recognize the elements he took from earlier works. But given how dense the sixty minutes of Malditos Benditos felt, the references seemed overabundant. For example, I don’t know to which piece the golden rescue blanket belongs, the creased surface upon which a woman in a golden-colored unitard rolled around with relish. Marzellina’s lines from Beethoven’s Fidelio, “Happy I shall be,” affirmed the ballerina’s pleasure. She was filmed by a cameraman on stage, and the video was projected onto the backdrop like in Hans van Manen’s Live. After the crumpled-up blanket had been discarded like trash, a wooden puppet (belonging to Montero’s 2011 Nutcracker) appeared. Some puppeteers made it dance with the ballerina, which reminded me of the puppets in the Stanislavsky Ballet’s new Petrushka.
11. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada 10. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © J.VallinasIn one scene, the air was tense after two men kissed; mysterious flashlights searched the foggy darkness of another scene. The orange-red window that subsequently opened on the backdrop might have led to hell. Dark colored chairs reappeared again and again. According to Montero, there were three hundred in total, representing the artists and ideas that appeared on Nuremberg’s stage during the past seventeen years. The dancers sat and stood on them, shoved them around, piled them into pyre-like heaps, and played a Trip to Jerusalem-like game. When they sat in a semicircle, their hands smacking their thighs, I couldn’t help but think of Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16.

Though the scenes sometimes felt like piecemeal, the quality of the dance was consistently high. The dancers’ stage presence was mesmerizing, their dynamic fabulous, and the intensity of their performance gripping. Nuremberg’s audience celebrated them with standing ovations.
12. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by G.Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © C.Quezada

Links: Website of the State Theater Nuremberg
Malditos Benditos” – Trailer
“Malditos Benditos” – All Ye Whom Love
Photos: 1. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Jesús Vallinas
2. Ensemle, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Jesús Vallinas
3. Goyo Montero and Edward Nunes, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Jesús Vallinas
4. Goyo Montero and Theo Montero, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
5. Theo Montero and ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
6. Alisa Uzunova and Elliana Mannella, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
7. Giuseppe Schillaci, Camryn Pearson, John Hackett, Mariana Vieira, Jay Ariës, and Alisa Uzunova; “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
8. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Jesús Vallinas
9. Stella Tozzi and ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
10. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Jesús Vallinas
11. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
12. Ensemble, “Malditos Benditos” by Goyo Montero, Ballet of the State Theater Nuremberg 2025 © Carlos Quezada
Editing: Kayla Kauffman

 

Too Bad

“Scheherazade”
Czech National Ballet
National Theatre
Prague, Czech Republic
June 21, 2025 (matinee)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. N.Nakagawa (Scheherazade), “Scheherazade” by M.Bigonzetti, Czech National Ballet 2025 © S.Gherciu To be upfront, Mauro Bigonzetti’s new Scheherazade for the Czech National Ballet is no asset to its repertory. Its choreography is meager and the plot thin; the characters lack depth, and the digital set design is unconvincing.
Bigonzetti takes up the narrative thread where Fokine’s 1910 Scheherazade for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes ends. Zobeida, the favorite but unfaithful wife of Shahryar, the king of Persia, had died. Enraged about womanhood in general, Shahryar took revenge by killing every woman he slept with the morning after their first night together. Scheherazade, the clever daughter of his vizier, put a stop to the slaughter. The tales she narrated to the king each night (collected in the Middle Eastern folk tale, One Thousand and One Nights) softened him.
Bigonzetti portrayed the women in line for Shahryar, among them Scheherazade (Nana Nakagawa), who was ready to sacrifice herself. (more…)

Eerie

“Valerie and Her Week of Wonders”
Laterna magika
The New Stage
Prague, Czech Republic
June 20, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Z.Piškula (Orlik) and P.Stach (Richard/Polecat), “Valerie and Her Week of Wonders,” Laterna magika 2025 © V.Brtnický The Czech avant-garde author Vítězlav Nezval’s gothic novel, Valery and Her Week of Wonders, written in 1935 and published in 1945, has experienced a revival at home. It was first adapted for the stage in 1967, and a new production was shown in Prague only forty years later in 2008. In 2023, two Czech companies simultaneously presented stage versions of Valeria and Her Week of Wonders; the West Bohemian Theatre in Cheb (located between Karlovy Vary and the Czech/German border) and Laterna magika in Prague. I saw Laterna magika’s production.

The wonders that Nezval’s teenage heroine, Valerie, experiences during the span of one week are far from wonderful and are rather a sexually laden horror trip that torpedoes her into womanhood. Events unfold with a dream Valerie has on the night of her first menstruation. Only late in the novel does this dream verge into the realm of reality, which it soon forsakes for a Garden of Eden-like happy ending. (more…)

Dancer Nominees for the Prix Benois 2025

Prix Benois de la Danse
Bolshoi Theatre (Historic Stage)
Moscow, Russia
June 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Bolshoi Theatre © Bolshoi Theatre/D.Yusupov2. Statuette of the Prix Benois de la Danse, design by I.Ustinov © Benois Center As in 2024, the Prix Benois jury nominated thirteen dancers from eight companies for this season’s award. Of the six women and seven men, two dance in China, France, and South Africa; one dances in Kazakhstan; and six, Russia. Next Tuesday, the laureates will be announced at an award ceremony at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.

Here’s a short overview of the nominees in alphabetical order by company name: (more…)

Choreographer Nominees for the Prix Benois 2025

Prix Benois de la Danse
Mukaram Avakhri, Wang Ge, Thomas Lebrun, Andrey Merkuriev, Mthuthuzeli November, Alexander Sergeev
Bolshoi Theatre (Historic Stage)

Moscow, Russia
June 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Bolshoi Theatre © Bolshoi Theatre/D.Yusupov2. Statuette of the Prix Benois de la Danse, design by I.Ustinov © Benois Center On June 17th, the Bolshoi Theatre’s Historic Stage will host the annual Prix Benois charity gala and awards ceremony. Traditionally, laureates of previous years have performed in a gala concert on the following evening. Prizes will be awarded for the best choreographer, female dancer, and male dancer. This year’s festival will pay tribute to Yuri Grigorovich, who passed away on May 19th. Grigorovich founded the Prix Benois competition in 1991 and served as chairman of the jury, artistic director, and president.
Below is an overview of the six nominated choreographers. A report of the dancer nominees will follow. (more…)

Quarrel in Hamburg

The Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
June 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

D.Volpi and L.Haslach rehearsing “Demian” by D.Volpi, The Hamburg Ballet 2025 © K.WestAfter John Neumeier handed over the artistic reins of the Hamburg Ballet to Demis Volpi, a smooth transition process seemed underway. Volpi, whose career as a dancer and choreographer began in Stuttgart, was artistic director of the Ballett am Rhein when Neumeier’s successor came into question. A selection committee of eleven (including Ted Brandsen, Dutch National Ballet; Tamas Detrich, Stuttgart Ballet; Brigitte Lefèvre, Paris Opera Ballet; and Ashley Wheater, Joeffrey Ballet) recommended Volpi to the Hamburg State Opera board of directors. As it happens, he was Neumeier’s desired candidate. In 2022, the then thirty-seven-year-old Volpi was unanimously elected as Hamburg Ballet’s new artistic director as of August 2024. (more…)

A Farewell Triplet

“Pathétique” (“Divertimento No. 15”/“Summerspace”/“Pathétique”)
Vienna State Ballet
Vienna State Opera
Vienna, Austria
April 09, 2025 (live stream)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “Divertimento No. 15” by G.Balanchine © George Balanchine Trust, Vienna State Ballet 2025 © Vienna State Ballet/A.TaylorTriple bills have become a trademark of the Vienna State Ballet since Martin Schläpfer took over as artistic director in 2020. The latest, Pathétique, is titled after Schläpfer’s newest and last creation. As on previous occasions, the program’s safe and well-tested base was a Balanchine followed by Cunningham’s Summerspace. (more…)

Much story, little dance

“Édith Piaf – La vie en rose”
Finnish National Ballet
Opera House
Helsinki, Finland
March 15, 2025 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

 1. T.Myllymäki (Édith Piaf), “Édith Piaf – La vie en rose” by R.Wäre, Finnish National Ballet 2025 © J.Lundqvist 2. T.Myllymäki, L.Haakana, H.J.Kang, and S.Kunnari (Édith Piaf); “Édith Piaf – La vie en rose” by R.Wäre, Finnish National Ballet 2025 © J.Lundqvist Two weeks after its world premiere, the Finnish National Ballet streamed its latest piece, Édith Piaf – La vie en rose, live on the online platform Stage 24. Sami Sykkö presented the live stream and conducted several interviews during the break. I was able to watch a recording a few days later.

Javier Torres, the company’s artistic director, assembled an entirely Finnish artistic team for Édith Piaf – La vie en rose. It is choreographer Reija Wäre’s (whose previous work stretches various genres, including opera and street dance, TV shows, and sports events) first full-length production. Composer Jukka Nykänen also has a reputation as a pianist. Jani Uljas designed the set; Erika Turunen, the costumes. (more…)

Family Feeling

“Dream Team” (“Jardi Tancat”/“The Blue Brides”/“Lickety-Split”/“High Moon”)
Gauthier Dance Juniors
Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
March 15, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “Jardí Tancat” by N.Duato, Gauthier Dance Juniors 2025 © J.BakIs it the laid-back, feel-good attitude of Eric Gauthier, director and choreographer of Gauthier Dance, that makes his company’s performances feel like family gatherings? A sense of family also unites his junior company, which was founded in 2022 and comprises six dancers (three men and three women) from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Taiwan. Their latest mixed bill, Dream Team, premiered in January. It includes two podcasts that fill the breaks the performers take to change costumes. In them, Gauthier chats with his juniors and the choreographers. When talking about their group spirit, the young dancers call Gauthier their boss whereas Gauthier seems like a proud daddy.

The original title of the program (Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue—quoting a traditional English wedding rhyme that details what a bride should wear for good luck) referred to the selection of pieces. (more…)

Human Striving

“Homage to Uwe Scholz”
Leipzig Ballet
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
February 15, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “Seventh Symphony” by U.Scholz, Leipzig Ballet 2025 © I.Zenna The Stuttgart-bred Uwe Scholz was in his early thirties when he became the Leipzig Ballet’s artistic director and chief choreographer in 1991. Scholz’s ballets were substantial and had depth, but the extent of his choreographic talent has been undiscovered due to his premature death in 2004. Last weekend, the Leipzig Ballet toured Homage to Uwe Scholz at the Forum Ludwigsburg. The double bill comprised two of Scholz’s symphonic pieces, Seventh Symphony, set to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 (1811-1812), and Second Symphony, set to Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 (1847).

For the first time, Leipzig Ballet isn’t led by a choreographer, but by artistic director Rémy Fichet. Fichet, who took the reins from Mario Schröder just this season, danced in Leipzig under Scholz and intends to keep his ballets in the repertory. However, he’s realistic. The company’s standard does not yet meet the requirements of every Scholz piece, he admitted, and the dancers will need time to hone their technique. Perhaps, Fichet can prevent Scholz’s work from sinking deeper into oblivion. (more…)

Effervescent

“The Merry Widow”
Hungarian National Ballet
Hungarian State Opera
Budapest, Hungary
February 8-9, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. M.Takamori (Valencienne), M.Bäckström (Camille), and D.Zhukov (Njegus), “The Merry Widow” by R.Hynd, Hungarian National Ballet 2025 © V.Berecz 2. M.Radziush (Count Danilo Danilovitch) and T.Melnyik (Hanna Glawari), “The Merry Widow” by R.Hynd, Hungarian National Ballet 2025 © V.Berecz The brisk beats that opened last Saturday’s revival of The Merry Widow at Budapest’s opera house promised a peppy performance, and the following two and a half hours delivered brio indeed. Franz Lehár composed the music in 1905 for his popular eponymous operetta, and John Launchbery and Allen Abbot were the first to edit it for the dance stage in 1974. Both worked on behalf of the British choreographer Ronald Hynd who in 1975 adapted the comic operetta into a three-act ballet for the Australian Ballet. Since then, many ballet companies have added it to their repertory. The Hungarian National Ballet premiered The Merry Widow in 2014 with new sets and costumes by the Brit Peter Docherty.

Docherty designed a long workbench stuffed with books and champagne (shadowed by a wall-sized replica of the national coat of arms) where the staff of the Pontevedrian embassy in Paris shuffled papers, boozed, and stood at attention as soon as the anthem sounded. The small Balkan state of Pontevedrian was bankrupt, but its geriatric ambassador, Baron Zeta, had a bailout plan. If his first secretary, Count Danilo Danilovitch, married the Pontevedrian millionaire’s widow, Hanna Glawari, her money would refill the state coffers. (more…)

As It Should Be

“Peter and the Wolf”
Jugendkompanie of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera
NEST (Künstlerhaus Vienna)
Vienna, Austria
January 26, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. A.Martelli (Peter) and S.E.Schippani (Bird), “Peter and the Wolf” by M.Schläpfer, Jugendkompanie of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera 2025 © M.Furnica2. E.Renahy (Cat), “Peter and the Wolf” by M.Schläpfer, Jugendkompanie of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera 2025 © M.Furnica 3. A.Martelli (Peter), Y.Kato (Grandfather), and S.E.Schippani (Bird); “Peter and the Wolf” by M.Schläpfer, Jugendkompanie of the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera 2025 © M.Furnica Last December, the Vienna State Opera opened a new venue for its young audience in a side wing of the Künstlerhaus, around 550 yards from the Vienna State Opera. The venue was previously a home for the city’s independent companies but was rebuilt thanks to private funding and a grant from Austria’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Research. The theater’s steep auditorium ensures visibility of the stage for even the shortest audience members. Although I was told that its name, NEST, is an abbreviation of “New State Opera,” it reminded me of a bird’s nest.

Despite sunny early spring weather, last Sunday’s matinee was well attended by both children and grown-ups to see the premiere of Peter and the Wolf, (more…)

Striking Similarities

“kaiserRequiem”
Vienna State Ballet & Volksoper Wien
Volksoper Wien
Vienna, Austria
January 25, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1.D.Schmutzhard (Emperor Overall) and ensemble, “kaiserRequiem”, directed and choreographed by A.Heise, Vienna State Ballet/Volksoper Wien 2025 © A.Taylor kaiserRequiem, the Volksoper Wien’s latest premiere, is a joint production of the State Ballet Vienna and the singers, choir, and orchestra of the Volksoper. The piece intertwines the sixty-minute chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The Emperor of Atlantis), composed by Viktor Ullmann in 1943/44, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor (K. 626). Both pieces feature death, which overtook both composers while working on them. Mozart died in December 1791 before finishing Requiem. Requiem had been commissioned, and when Mozart died, his wife, Constanze, assigned its completion to Franz Xaver Süßmayr, her husband’s former pupil. Being of Jewish parentage, Ullmann and his wife were deported to the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt (in today’s Czech Republic) in September 1942. It was a showpiece ghetto to promote the allegedly successful resettlement of Jews, so Theresienstadt had a department for so-called “leisure activities,” such as sports, theater, lectures, and reading. Ullmann worked there as a composer, music critic, and musical event organizer. The premiere of his opera The Emperor of Atlantis was scheduled for Theresienstadt’s stage but was canceled after the general rehearsal. Perhaps the piece’s highly political sarcasm, though subtle, did not slip the notice of the ruling powers, but that’s only speculation. (more…)

Aerial Ballet

“Möbius”
Compagnie XY
Forum Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg, Germany
January 10, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

1. Ensemble, “Möbius”—a collective artwork by Compagnie XY in collaboration with R.Ouramdane, Compagnie XY 2025 © C.R.De LageThe northern French company Compagnie XY is a group of forty acrobats who specialize in lifts. Nineteen of them perform in Möbius, the troupe’s fifth and latest piece created in collaboration with the French choreographer and dancer Rachid Ouramdane. Last weekend, it toured at the Forum Ludwigsburg.
Möbius opened sedately and silently. One by one, the barefooted artists walked on either side of the auditorium toward a stage equipped only with gray-greenish flooring. They stood scattered across it, motionless, gazing sternly at the audience. The first percussive beats set them in motion. They stretched their arms sideways like birds ready for take-off, and a blink of an eye later, the first bodies soared in the air. Pushed by multiple interlocked arms that served as a living trampoline, they flew from one group to the other, often adding extra thrilling saltos and other aerial acrobatics. (more…)

Lucky He

“A Christmas Carol”
Finnish National Ballet
Opera House
Helsinki, Finland
December 2024 (video)

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2024 by Ilona Landgraf

1. J.Xia (Fred) and J.Pakkanen (Scrooge), “A Christmas Carol” by D.Bintley, Finnish National Ballet 2023 © R.Oksaharju Last Christmas, I missed the Finnish National Ballet’s new A Christmas Carol on arte.tv. Luckily, the channel rescheduled the recording for this December. David Bintley, the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s former director, choreographed the two-act production and was the first to adapt Charles Dickens’s novella about the chronically ill-tempered miser, Scrooge, for the ballet stage.

In Act I, Bintley introduces the old merchant, Scrooge (Johan Pakkanen), who hates people in general and Christmas in particular, along with his antitheses, Fred (Jun Xia) and Bob Cratchit (Frans Valkama). Both are family men but represent different social classes. Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, is well-off and in the most buoyant of Christmas moods when he invites his uncle for Christmas (he’s, of course, immediately rebuffed). Bob, Scrooge’s conscientious but underpaid clerk, feeds his family of six on a limited budget. He, too, is happy and generous by nature but worries about the serious illness of his youngest son, Tiny Tim (Janne Kouhia). (more…)