THE NUTCRACKER
This all-American ballet was created 98 years ago in Saint Petersburg for the pleasure of the czar and his aristocratic cronies, and it was based on “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, a popular 19th-century German writer noted for his grotesque gothic fairy tales.
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The first performances were not an unmitigated success. The czar didn’t care for the first act, which was devoted to a bourgeois family party. Presumably only the nobility were worthy of being presented attractively onstage to this august audience. One well-known contemporary writer dismissed the entire ballet contemptuously: “The decor of scene 1 is both disgusting and profoundly shocking . . . we were obliged to contemplate during a whole hour the salon of some rich parvenu banker in the Friedrichstrasse style. It was stupid, coarse, heavy and dark . . . I was indignant! . . . The second act is still worse . . . the music reminds one of an open-air military band . . . Tchaikovsky has never written anything more banal than some of these numbers.” That writer made amends years later, admitting he was only 22 years old when he issued his Olympian judgment.
As usual, Page and Long have invited guest artists from a number of troupes to dance the various classic and character variations. Since this Nutcracker is performed almost daily, there are alternate casts of principals. On opening night, Janet Shibata and Michael Bjerknes were the handsome, elegant Snow Queen and King, whose demanding duet concludes the first act. Yoko Ichino as the Sugar Plum Fairy and David Nixon as her Prince offered a glittering and technically strong Grand Pas de Deux.
