Committed to tweaking convention, the Scottish Ballet has devoted its holiday season to The Snow Queen, a winter-themed ballet that isn’t The Nutcracker. The libretto splits the difference between Frozen and the spikier, scarier, entirely more dour and mythic Hans Christian Anderson tale that inspired the Disney blockbuster. The company director, Christopher Hampson, has fashioned a two-track love story, not a quest narrative like the Andersen. But plot isn’t the 2019 ballet’s strong suit anyway. Like so much of classical dance narrative, the action and delight depend upon the divertissements. In The Snow Queen, that means a traveling circus, dancing wolves, and a jumping Jack Frost. The production features two other 19th-century virtues: bounteous, magical sets—by Lez Brotherston, designer for British dance-theater maestro Matthew Bourne—and tuneful, characterful, rhythmically rousing music, performed nightly by the Scottish Ballet orchestra. Even excerpted and instrumentalized, Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Snow Maiden proves by turns magisterial and folkloric, playful and as eerie as a cry muffled by snow. The production tours Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness through the end of January. —Apollinaire Scherr

Tour Dates: Festival Theatre, Edinburgh (November 27 – December 7); Theatre Royal, Glasgow (January 3 – 17); His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen (January 21 – 24); Eden Court, Inverness (January 28 – 31)