By Talia Carl­isle

Invite out your friends and put on your best faux fur, because Witch Music Theatre is back in town. Don’t let the cold weath­er stop you from exper­i­en­cing the best night out this side of Broad­way, with Wellington’s own revolu­tion of music­al geni­us onstage at Han­nah Play­house until Sat­urday.

Fol­low­ing a mem­or­able and magic­al sea­son of Into The Woods last year, comes the incom­par­able and award-win­ning work of com­poser Dave Mal­loy in The New Zea­l­and premiere of Nata­sha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.

This music­al adapt­a­tion of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is noth­ing you would expect from a war nov­el, and everything you could want in an escape from every­day Wel­ling­ton to the opu­lent back­drop of 19th-cen­tury Rus­sia.

There arises from the ashes of war our talk of the town, Nata­sha Rostova, new in Moscow, and ready to reunite with her battle-worn fiancé… but adven­tures await them both and the music­al may­hem begins!

Show­cas­ing the finest music­al tal­ent Wel­ling­ton has seen, it’s the per­fect cap­tiv­at­ing and heart warm­ing show this winter with glor­i­ous music, bound­less energy, sat­in and charm with dance moves and har­mon­ies to lift anyone’s spir­its.

The pas­sion to bring this show to life, and get the rights for this riot­ous affair is a love story of its own that Witch Music Theatre was determ­ined to suc­ceed in. As a res­ult, they are the first to stage it in New Zea­l­and, and describe the oppor­tun­ity as “a dream come true”.

It’s a dream for us all in the audi­ence, being instantly trans­por­ted from the glam up of Han­nah Play­house to the high soci­ety party play­ground of Rus­sia, a light­ing feat by oper­at­or Scott Max­im, programmed by Tech­nic­al Pro­du­cer Joshua Tuck­er-Emer­son, that looks effort­less and jaw-drop­ping, no doubt influ­enced by Cre­at­ive Pro­du­cer Ben Tuck­er-Emer­son (who also designed the gor­geous cos­tumes).

Mov­ing chan­deliers make up their own mem­ber of the cast, lift­ing and drop­ping with dra­mat­ic effect, and the band form part of the set and cast sprinkled like addict­ive fairy dust in and around the stage, pour­ing the most sul­try tunes to carry us away with the cast.

Cel­eb­rated dir­ect­ors Maya Handa Naff and Nick Lerew ensure the cast are the glit­ter­ing centrepiece, each worthy of host­ing their own cen­tury defin­ing party in their own music­al story, with the vocals, cha­risma and dance moves to steal the show.

Our hearts and minds are already stolen by angel­ic Nata­sha Rostova (Lane Corby) who lays out the can­vas for romance with her fiancé Andrey (mul­ti­tal­en­ted geni­us Glenn Horsfall). Romance heats up how­ever with bad boy Anatole (Henry Ashby), until our theatre queen, and Natasha’s fierce pro­tect­or Marya (Frankie Leota) has had enough.

Every­one needs a guard­i­an angel and she arrives tonight, always on time, with per­fect pitch­ing, enun­ci­ation and heav­enly hugs. Her pres­ence calms, and her solo pours into our souls.

Nata­sha is adored and doted on by her pro­tect­ive cous­in, Sonya (Ãine Galla­gh­er), who shines bright­er than any comet in the heart steal­ing Sonya Alone.

Reach­ing highest of heights close to that is aer­i­al­ist Jack­son Cord­ery who mas­ter­fully manip­u­lates his body and tal­ent to wow the room, before slip­ping back into the incred­ible party. I can’t help but notice my fel­lows from pre­vi­ous Wel­ling­ton Foot­lights Soci­ety pro­duc­tions, Kirsty Huszka, Kev­in Orlando, and Patrick Jen­nings who blow me away with every show they do.

I also enjoy Rachel McSweeney as Mary, the spin­ster daugh­ter of Prince Bolon­sky who hosts our guests most sweetly, and multi-music­al Pierre (Wil­li­am Duig­nan) amazes us with his music­al­ity, backed up by a whole orches­tra includ­ing the most inspir­ing oboe solo by Calv­in Scott.

For a jaw-drop­ping low price of $36–56, includ­ing newly released bal­cony seats, this show is a steal for per­fec­ted music­al romance which com­bines the music­al worlds and genres of Oz, Abba, Chica­go and Cirque de Soleil.

You can’t find more beau­ti­ful music than that led by music­al dir­ect­or Hay­den Taylor, syn­chron­ised per­fectly into art by cho­reo­graph­ers Greta Casey-Solly (Te Atiawa) and Emily McDer­mott.

If you’re more fash­ion inclined, there are tan­tal­ising tex­tures of silk, vel­vet, mesh, frills, lace and leath­er. But whatever your tastes, your best memor­ies will include Nata­sha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 – if you snap up the chance to see it. There’s only a few tick­ets left for Fri­day, so you may need a rock­et to get there, but the places this music­al will take you are out of this world.