Two days before Christmas my husband and I went to Lincoln Center to see City Ballet’s Nutcracker, as choreographed by Balanchine himself. According to the program, Balanchine is the one who brought this ballet back into the modern story ballet repertoire and established it as the Christmas ballet of choice for all dance companies, and before he touched it, it has pretty much been unloved in forgotten*. What I was there to see, though, was not “The Nutcracker, as Envisioned by Mr. B. in the Great Revelation Which He Shared with America,” but rather yet another take on one of my favorite story ballets (most of the versions I see credit Petipa as being the originator of their choreography), one which has millions of different possible combinations of how to handle the music. I’ve seen Kent Stowell’s (at Pacific Northwest Ballet), Matthew Bourne’s, English Ballet’s, Arizona Ballet Theater’s, and a few others I can’t remember right now. I love the way all of these different choreographers and dance companies take something which I sort of think doesn’t have a lot of flexibility (the music stays the same and there’s always the Hoffman story behind it all) and makes completely different ballets – in my mind, at least.
City Ballet’s Nutcracker is most notable, in my mind, for the fact that rather than having Clara turn into an adult before she goes into the fantasy world (where the various Suite dances take place), a child is present throughout in the role – which limits the dancing she can do, as you’ll never get anywhere near the same quality of dancing from an 8 or 10 year old as a 24 year old! (She’s also called “Marie” instead of Clara – how did that happen? – and was performed by Maria Gorokhov.) This also limits the emotional intensity of the role – it’s not about her coming into adulthood, it’s dancing about an 8 year and her toys and fantasies. This is not intrinsically interesting and, I think, diminishes the overall potential of the ballet substantially.
That said, there are things to enjoy about the first act, primarily the costumes and the charm of the young dancers (and some fun scenery as a scrim is used to hide the living room, the first time I’ve ever seen this done – the children stand in front of a door and peer in the keyhole, and the lights go on behind the scrim so we can see what they are looking at). This half of the Nutcracker follows a more or less normal “plot,” with boys and girls (and adults) showing up for a party at Marie’s parent’s house, Marie being given a Nutcracker, and the inevitable fight between the boys with their war toys and Marie (and the girls) which results in the Nutcracker being injured, a “growing Christmas tree” and rat/mice versus Nutcracker battle.
City Ballet’s also has a dance for other toys that Drosselmeier brings with him, in this case a toy soldier (Austin Laurent) and a “Harlequin and Columbine” pair (Erica Pereira and Brittany Pollack). There is also a new character, the nephew of Drosselmeier (played by Joshua Shutkind), who is kind to and solicitous of Marie (and later becomes the spirit animating the Nutcracker when we move on to the dream sequence). Marie falls asleep on a couch and the story transitions into the dream sequence, of which the most notable thing was the multi-headed rat king. Once the Nutcracker has defeated him, his crown is given to Marie, and the set is swept away to a snowy wonderland (no idea why) where Marie and the Nutcracker appear to be royalty of some sort and hordes of ballerinas come out to dance as snowflakes while white bits fall from the ceiling. This last bit was pure theatrical magic, although I was a bit worried that the ballerinas were going to slip on the “snow.”
The second half follows the conceit that the ballet is taking place in the “Land of Sweets,” but all of the traditional names for the solos have been changed. The Arabian (or Peacock in Stowell’s version) dance is now “Coffee,” the Chinese dance is “Tea,” the Russian dance is Candy Canes – where did this come from? I was put off my the peculiar choices here. On the other hand, the freaky woman with the giant skirt I hadn’t seen since Ballet Arizona made an appearance, and I got a huge laugh watching the little kids come out from under her skirts and dance on stage. Thanks to Justin Peck for being this ballet’s panto dame (Mother Ginger, to be accurate) – I really enjoyed his clowning and hamming. We also got a nice Waltz of the Flowers, with the flowers in lovely tiered full skirts in increasing intensity of pink that poofed up gorgeously as they swirled around. Aaah!
Unfortunately, I was rather checked out for Teresa Reichlen and Charles Askegard’s performance in the final duet of “The Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier.” But I don’t think it was just me worrying about the bills piling up during this trip; it was the rather uninspired choreography in all of the show leading to its ultimate, well, canned duet. I just wonder what was going on for Balanchine – to me, it felt like he just wasn’t very excited about this show and didn’t want to make it a showcase for outstanding dancing – he just wanted to move the narrative along. I wonder if the music didn’t inspire him enough, or if he was in a hurry, or if there was something else going on – but when I think of the incredible things he was doing at this time and earlier, I feel like he forgot to care about the Nutcracker enough to make it a great dance piece. So, overall, while I found this an entertaining enough evening, I left disappointed. Balanchine was not only not able to make the first act any better than almost anyone else (only Bourne has excelled here), but he didn’t even make the second act brilliant like I think he had the ability to do. Ah, well – at least the music was great, and with luck, I’ll be able to see City Ballet more than once in ten years and get a better choice of shows the next time.
(This review is for a performance that took place at 6 PM on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008.)
*Note the Wikipedia article on the Nutcracker completely blows this assertion out of the water. What is up with this obsessive worship of Balanchine? Is City Ballet incapable of accepting the fact that things have gone on in ballet during the time he was choreographing that didn’t involve him, that other influences were moving ballet forward at the same time? No wonder I came to the UK being ignorant of Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan!
Tags: Balanchine, ballet, ballet reviews, Brittany Pollack, Charles Askegard, City Ballet, dance reviews, Drosselmeier, Erica Pereira, Joshua Shutkind, Justin Peck, Kent Stowell, Mark Morris, matthew bourne, New York City Ballet, nutcracker, review, Teresa Reichlen
Life in the Cheap Seats - Webcowgirl's London theatre reviews 
December 29, 2008 at 11:09 pm |
You wondered about the name “Marie.” “Marie” is the little girl’s name in the original E.T.A. Hoffmann story, and Clara is only a doll that belongs to Marie. I haven’t seen Mark Morris’s production THE HARD NUT, but apparently his is even truer to the plot of the original story, in it’s way.
December 30, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
Clara visits the Land of Sweets in the ballet, over which the SugarPlum Fairy rules. The dances are therefore all representative of different kinds of luxury items which an upper class family would have in the storecupboard at Christmas. What you call the “traditional” names of the dances are actually convenient modern labels. The “Chinese Dance” represents tea, the “Arabian Dance” represents coffee, the “Spanish Dance” (often cut) represents oranges, the “Russian Dance” is trepak (a kind of toffee fudge) the “Dance of the reed flutes” should actually be the “Dance of the myrlitons” which are esentially candy canes and the “Waltz of the Flowers” represents either rose petal jam, pot pourri or perfumes (opinions differ). The SugarPlum Fairy, of course, represents Sugar Plums (which would have been expensive preserved fruits – and which also feature in “The Night Before Christmas”.
The essential problem with the ballet is that many choreographers have tried (and failed) to make Act II anything other than a series of divertissements, mainly because all the plot is in Act 1. This, however, is common in most classical ballets. Many versions fight shy of the theme of Clara’s sexual awakening.
I’ve seen many versions myself. Far and away the best are Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production (which sticks to the traditional aspects of the story but is actually quite frightening) and Australian Ballet’s version called “Clara’s Story”. Both are available on DVD and well worth a watch. I found “The Hard Nut” mostly incomprehensible, personally. The original story, btw, is called “Clara and the Mouse King”.
December 18, 2009 at 4:18 pm |
[…] Francisco) and Matthew Bourne’s (which has my favorite first act of all). Last year we saw Mr. B’s version at City Ballet, and I was surprised at how inflexible I was as to certain story elements. This review, then, […]
October 1, 2012 at 8:16 am |
Truly the most idiotic reciew of a ballet performance I’ve ever read. Congrats on that, I guess.
October 1, 2012 at 9:37 am |
Love your spelling, Ted!
July 18, 2019 at 2:50 am |
I loved this post! Reading your blog is an inspiration to
myself and the Eglevsky Ballet. Keep creating
great content, we continue to share to our followers and
students who love it as well!