NUTCRACKERS, NOTCRACKERS AND JOY TO THE WORLD.

Once upon a time there were no Nutcrackers! Then the great Czar of snowy Russia called. "Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, you have composed for us two wonderful ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Now make us a new and glorious one for our Imperial Theatre season. I will give you the services of our finest choreographer, Marius Petipa, and Riccardo Drigo to conduct the orchestra. Make us something joyous for the children and to show off our very finest dancers in the Maryinsky company. A lady at court has told us of a gothic story, Der Nussknacker und der Mausekonig, by a German author, E.T.A. Hoffmann, who, I'm told, was much devoted to Mozart." "No, no," protested Tchaikovsky. "I know that tale and it is not suitable for a ballet." "Well, Peter Ilyich, then we will find someone who can make it suitable. Do you know the writings of the Frenchman Alexandre Dumas? Oh, and Peter, the commission will be sizeable." The somewhat one-sided discussion went much like that.

It takes a long time to write and orchestrate the music for a ballet, and in the middle of his composition, Tchaikovsky had to travel to New York to conduct the inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall. "Hmm, snowflakes, beautiful, perfect, how pure," Tchaikovsky perhaps thought one winter day, studying the pointed white crystals on his glove. And later, "Smell those spring flowers; they seem to waltz in the breeze," and "Perhaps I'll use the celesta--it sounds like tiny fairies dancing."

Petipa received the French libretto (Casse-Noisette) and the music as it was written for the ballet, but he became ill and so his assistant Lev Ivanov continued the work. And by December 1892, The Nutcracker (Shchelkunchik in Russian) made its debut at the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Czar Alexander III complimented Tchaikovsky on his composition, but audiences weren't sure what to think. The critics hated it. It did not follow the Romantic ballet formulas, the story seemed to begin as one thing and then change to something else--and the prima ballerina did not even enter until nearly the end of the ballet! Tchaikovsky was depressed. But because so many young student dancers were cast in the opening scenes, the ballet was greatly appreciated by the ballet school, and most serious young dancers made it their business to learn the roles in case they might be allowed to dance next time--and maybe someday to dance the wonderful roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.

Just like Julie G. did.

The Nutcracker story has many twists and turns, and it varies depending on who is devising the choreography. Generally, a girl, Clara (Mary, Made or Masha in other versions), is given a nutcracker by her godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, at a Christmas Eve party arranged by her parents. Sometimes she has a younger brother, Fritz, who breaks the nutcracker. Late at night Clara comes to retrieve her gift from under the tree, only to find that she must defend him against the evil King of the Mice (or rats, coyotes, occasionally a wicked Mouse Queen). The Nutcracker is transformed into a prince who takes her through a flurry of pure snowflakes to the Kingdom of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier make her a gift of much beautiful dancing.

Many great choreographers have devised new versions of the ballet--always with Tchaikovsky's music, though: Nicholas Sergeyev, then Frederick Ashton for Sadler's Wells Ballet, George Balanchine for New York City Ballet, Yuri Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet, John Cranko for the Stuttgart Ballet, Rudolf Nureyev for the Royal Swedish and The Royal (English) Ballets, Flemming Flindt for the Royal Danish Ballet, John Neumeier for Frankfurt Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov and then Kevin McKenzie for American Ballet Theatre. Wonderful characters are created, such as Bear, Dew Drop, Mother Ginger, Arabian Coffee, grandfather. But one mysterious and vibrant character always is seen: Drosselmeyer. Who or what is he?

In the early 1940s, Alexandra Danilova and George Balanchine visited Willam Christensen in San Francisco. Christensen had lately become director of San Francisco Ballet and he needed a new work for his holiday performances. Drawing from the memories of his Maryinsky guests and his own imagination, Christensen devised the first full-length American Nutcracker (1944). When Willam left San Francisco for Utah, his brother Lew Christensen added his own stamp to The Nutcracker, and today the credit is shared by L. Christensen and H. (for Helgi) Tomasson, the present artistic director. As soon as a professional company was established--Utah Ballet/Ballet West--the original version was revived and has run for some forty-plus years in Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, George Balanchine had established himself as artistic director of New York City Ballet and his new Nutcracker was premiered in 1954 at City Center, then revised when City Ballet moved to the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center (1964). Participation in performances seems to generate a strange need in choreographers to place their own stamp on The Nutcracker, while still continuing to use Hoffmann's or Dumas's basic plot and, always, Tchaikovsky's music.

Joining the Ranks of Sugar Plums

By JULIE GUMBINNER

I awoke from a restless night, with visions of Sugar Plums dancing in my head, literally. My first show was a special matinee for 2,000 school children arriving in buses. It was an early morning for me, so I had my cup of coffee and a bowl of--you guessed it--Lucky Charms. I made my way to the theater for a quick forty-five-minute warmup. My nerves were gradually building throughout class--each tick on the clock brought me one minute closer to that stage. My mind kept going over every correction that I had received from the artistic staff. I tried to focus on really believing that I was the Sugar Plum Fairy, so that the audience could experience the magic that the role should convey.

After class. I began to do my hair and makeup. A few days before. [former Houston Ballet prima ballerina] Janie Parker had come down to the theater to teach me the proper way to create a classical hairdo, which is quite complex. I was honored to have had her help and input--she is an inspiration to me. I applied what she had said, and I was ready.

It was just a matter of time at this point, and the prayers were flowing. The music for the Waltz of the Flowers was coming to an end, and I was up next. I had wonderful help and encouragement from the staff, my partner Jim Payne, my family and friends. Now it was up to me to take all of that wisdom and advice and go out there and do my very best! I looked across to the other side of the stage where Jim was waiting to go, on, and he gave "thumbs up." Then we took our first steps. It was scary at first, but we ended up just having a good time dancing together. It almost seems like it never happened, but I know that it did, and I am so thankful to have had that experience. A dream of mine came true by dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy, and I will always cherish these memories.

Portions of this journal appeared in Houston Ballet News in 1997.

Master of the Nutcracker ceremonies

BY DON MCDONAGH

Herr Drosselmeyer's exact relationship to the Stahlbaum family varies from production to production--in some he is a friend or neighbor, in others an uncle/godfather to their daughter Marie/Clara. What is not in question in any production is his authoritative, take-charge behavior. Once beside the family hearth, he becomes the unquestioned master of ceremonies at the celebration.

For the Oakland Ballet, artistic director (now emeritus) and choreographer Ronn Guidi has extended the role into Act II, where Drosselmeyer carries on the same delightfully imperious role, this time as Major Domo in the dream-world Land of Sweets. In the first act he brings wonderful, magical toys and in the second a cast of fanciful characters that would delight the imagination of any child.

An amusing twist to the development of the ballet is that the dream creatures take on willful roles of their own, echoing the mischief caused by the pesky little brother Fritz in Act I. Some of their antics include pursuit of the Tea-variation women by one of the Russian Licorice trio's men. Turnabout is fair play, so the amorous man is forced to flee a newly aggressive Tea woman at the conclusion of his variation. The Major Domo is somewhat vexed, but this is Marie's dream, and there is little to do but carry on with his role as the presenter. Dramatically, it works and is very good fun! --Dance Magazine writer Don McDonagh is chronicling a decade of the history of New York City Ballet (1957-1967) and is president of Dance Perspectives Foundation.

A School-Community Nutty Partnership

BY RICHARD REIN

Twenty-one years ago, a petite ballet student who was not nearly the dancer that she would soon become, and an almost-middle-aged teacher who was not nearly the dancer that he once had been, walked onstage together at the start of The Nutcracker pas de deux. The young Sugar Plum Fairy, Sally Rousse, would go on to a career with Ballet Chicago, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, and finally to co-direct, with her husband, James Sewell, the James Sewell Ballet Company in Minneapolis. The teacher, with his "irreverent curls," was me, making my absolutely final appearance as a man in tights. Thus was the modest beginning of our Nutcracker at St. Paul's School.

Somewhat by the seat of our pants, my assistant Suzanne Taylor and I decided to put together a small production of The Nutcracker. We felt strongly that this would add a wonderful tradition to St. Paul's holiday season, while also challenging our students artistically and allowing us to share our talents with the Concord, New Hampshire, community. While I staged the pas de deux and the Chinese Tea variations, Suzanne did almost everything else. We learned that the then-Hartford Ballet was making new costumes for its own production and was selling the costumes from their second act. With a rented backdrop, we were in business.

Through the years, the ballet evolved as the number of students in the program increased: Solo variations became duets, trios or a pas de deux. We added an opening to include angels, and the hoops and Russian dance were also added, along with a closing coda. The choreography was a hodgepodge of styles from many different choreographers.

Despite its modest beginning, the production was a huge success from the start. In the early years, we had crowds far in excess of the school's Memorial Hall seating capacity until the chief of security and fire marshal said we would only be allowed a capacity based on available seating. With near-riots at the door, we decided that tickets were a necessity. Over twenty years, more than 42,000 people have enjoyed the performances.

In the early 1990s, with the city of Concord raising money to renovate the Capitol Center for the Arts, we began asking for a suggested donations of $2, then $3, with 100 percent of the money going to the building fund for the Arts Center. This relationship continues today, with the St. Paul's School Ballet Company having raised in excess of $35,000 for the fund.

The generosity of two alumni, Byam Stevens ('48) and Alex Ewing ('49), as well as the continuing support from the school, made possible a new production for the twenty-first anniversary. The gifts allowed us to bring in new choreography and purchase backdrops for a new snow scene and the second-act Kingdom of the Sweets. New costumes for these dances were made possible by the school.

Our first goal was to bring some form of narrative cohesiveness to the story. Early performances had included only the second-act variations; missing--but written as notes in the program--were the first act and the beautiful snow scene. Although we attempted to indicate the story line, most in the audience found it a mystery. Byam Stevens Jr. ('71), an acting coach and director with extensive background in ballet, was hired to write a prologue. His research told of the nephew of Herr Drosselmeyer, who was bewitched and turned into a hideous nutcracker, doomed until a young girl fell in love with him. The story is now told to the audience through Drosselmeyer's narration along with the pantomime.

Choreographer Lisa de Ribere, who has choreographed many repertory favorites at St. Paul's School, returned to stage a magical snow scene and a beautiful new Waltz of the Flowers divertissement. De Ribere had choreographed a critically acclaimed production of The Nutcracker for the Milwaukee Ballet, and she restaged the two dances from this production for St. Paul's.

Its success was wonderful. For the first time, I feel that our production has lived up to the standards and talents of the dancers, making our Nutcracker one the school truly can be proud of. --Richard Rein, now director of dance at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, is a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre and Pennsylvania Ballet. His coaching and teaching skills have produced many professional dancers. Portions of this story appeared in Paulies on Pointe.

Other ways to Crack a Nut

Hark Morris's The Hard Nut places his cartoon-like version of the Nutcracker in the swinging 1960s. Humorous and odd. But when his cross-gendered snowflakes are lofted into the air by the lilting music, tossing snow like confetti, the audience responds with a great visceral whoop as if they too transcend the limits of gravity and just--swirl. National Ballet of China sets its production of The Nutcracker in a culture more easily understood by its people (see review of National Ballet of China on page 85), but they too keep the music. Santa Barbara's State Street Ballet choreographers Rodney Gustafson and Gary McKenzie have set their tale in a 1930s Hollywood sound stage with vamps and gangster rats. The Harlem Nutcracker (1996), choreographed by Donald Byrd, is set in New York's Harlem of the 1920s and '30s. It uses the Tchaikovsky score, but in an arrangement by jazz giants Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Byrd's story has a grandmother looking back over her life and is definitely for older children. Birmingham Royal Ballet's Nutcracker Sweetie, choreographed by David Bintley [see December Online Reviews, www.dancemagazine.com], also uses the Ellington/Strayhorn arrangement.

Most versions take place in the wintry ice and snow of the Northern Hemisphere, but Graeme Murphy's Australian Ballet Nutcracker takes place on a hot and humid Christmas Eve. He gets to the snow scenes when his grandmother, Clara, looks back at her former life as a Russian ballerina.

Once a young prince, Eliot Feld chose to start a new New York tradition--the NoTCRACKER. Every year since 1998, Feld has provided a Nutcracker diversion with caterpillars, butterflies and gentle (well, almost) programs for an alternative holiday season. There are other holiday alternatives, of course: everywhere there's Kwanzaa, Pittsburgh's Poinsettias and Pizzazz, Oklahoma City's Yuletide Magic, Canadian Children's Dance Theatre's Wintersong, Dozens of Dreidels, Berea College's Christmas Country Dance School, Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular (at last count at eight locations throughout the U.S.) and The SpaceCracker at Reno's Flamingo Hilton. Among all the many versions and alternatives, we each have our favorites.

Why I Love Balanchine's Nutcracker

BY DORIS HERING

Last November, the annual season of George Balanchine's Nutcracker opened into the tensely prosaic world of an orchestra strike. Before the initial performance, New York City Ballet Artistic Director Peter Martins stepped onto the New York State Theater stage to explain that the ballet would take place, but with taped accompaniment. He closed his talk with, "I have the utmost confidence in what you are about to see, and that these are the greatest dancers anywhere in the world. They are the best, and they will give you the best."

His optimism made me a bit uneasy. After all, there had been nine hours of labor negotiations that day, and tape, no matter how well made, does not have the flexibility of a live orchestra under a conductor who keeps his eye on the dancers and his ear to the musicians.

There was no reason for worry. Critic Edwin Denby once wrote of the first act party scene that the children "glistened with responsibility." As the years have gone by, that responsibility, with its subtext of tension, has grown into assurance.

In the early days of this production, first danced in 1954 at City Center, little girls, with their hair tucked up, performed the boys' roles. Now the School of American Ballet supplies a sturdy cadre of feisty little males to enliven the action and give the girls a hard time.

In most full-length ballets, when children are used, one is pleased to see them, but eventually they become part of the decor. In Nutcracker, the children, here so beautifully rehearsed by Garielle Whittle, are the focus of the action. As they pertly lift their knees in the polka or imitate the gestures of the performing dolls, one notices them not just because they are cute, but because they are meaningful.

Back in the 1930s and '40s, when Balanchine choreographed Broadway musicals, he was known to have an uncanny sense of how and when to use dance to pick up the pace of a production. In his Nutcracker there are three of these truly exultant moments, and in each case it is pure dance that serves not merely as divertissement but as apogee to the preceding events. They are the pulsating dance of the Snowflakes, the serene Waltz of the Flowers, and the coruscant pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. In all three instances it also seems as though Tchaikovsky wanted to forget the story-laden details of the music and expand into a wider world, one with an almost symphonic reach.

Near the end of the season's forty-five performances, I visited The Nutcracker for the second time. The children were as involved--and involving--as at the beginning. As for the orchestra, it had returned to the pit. After all, what kind of holiday would its audience members have had without their glorious annual "fix" of Balanchine-cum-Tchaikovsky?--Senior Editor Doris Hering has been writing and reviewing for Dance Magazine since 1946. She says she still learns something from Balanchine each time she sees his work performed.

Up Close and Personable 

Television is a close-up medium. It's no good for panoramic, full-proscenium views because the dancers become just barely visible figures on a screen. There's no tableau of the entire corps against a stunning backdrop, or a view of lovely floor patterns as seen from the upper balcony's cheap seats. Every seat is down front in the orchestra. What television excels at is showing subtlety, detail and characterization. The videographer and editor are part of the choreography. There are two good Nutcracker films rebroadcast on television during the holidays, but they are no substitute for live performances.

The MGM/UA production of The Nutcracker (1977) is a made-for-television show (studio production shot in Toronto and directed by Tony Charmoli) that is also available on video and on stereo disc (DVD). Diminutive, dramatic Gelsey Kirkland is believable both as a child and as a young woman and Mikhail Baryshnikov is definitely someone whose shoulder you would like to lean on, when he doesn't astonish you with leaps in the air. The segues and cutaways from scene to scene make the story flow as it never quite does in any other medium. The dancing, of course, choreographed by Baryshnikov (Waltz of the Snowflakes by Vasily Vainonen) for American Ballet Theatre's 1976 season, is flawless.

In 1986, Pacific Northwest Ballet staged its production with distinctive sets and costumes by Maurice (Where the Wild Things Are) Sendak. Director Carroll Ballard filmed the highly praised stage production where Kent Stowell's choreography traced Hoffmann's original tale more closely. It was beautiful, but it lacked the production values and close-ups of a small-screen production. Sendak's illustrated book of The Nutcracker by Crown Publishers is in libraries and bookstores, but currently the filmed version is unavailable for rent or purchase. The live version though, is performed each holiday for more than 100,000 ticket holders. In recent years the entire Seattle Center Opera House has been decorated for the occasion in the holiday spirit of The Nutcracker, including large displays of Sendak sets in the lobby, where audience members can view them closely. PNB's production boasts more than 100 props, including a huge Mouse King (a puppet with seventeen moving pieces and a tail that wraps around the backstage area), and an impressive Christmas tree (constructed by Boeing engineers in a flight hangar with materials they use to build airplanes). The tree doubles in height in Act I, from fourteen feet to twenty-eight feet tall.

Emile Ardolino directed the Warner Brothers film of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker (1993), which essentially reproduced the predictably glittering New York City Ballet production of that year. On film, Macaulay Culkin plays the child prince (no dancing) and lends what was then his star billing in an effort to draw viewers to the box office. Darci Kistler and Damian Woetzel, however, as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, actually earned their top billing in the film. This version lacks all the charm of Act I, but fortunately has much enjoyable dancing in Act II. The production is available on video and on

DVD and is shown on television.

There are many other films and videos bearing the name Nutcracker--IMAX even had a frightening forty-foot-tall version--but until a better small-screen version comes along, look for the Baryshnikov or the Balanchine. Otherwise, go live.

Kids and Nutcrackers

BY GIGI BERARDI

During the holiday season, parents of little ones may women "Are my children old enough to see The Nutcracker?" I thought my 3 1/2-year-old twins were ready, and so off we went to a Pacific Northwest Ballet matinee in 1999.

My husband and I thought we had everything figured out. We had seats on an aisle, and plenty of juice cups, toys, books, and snacks to keep the twins entertained at the intermission. All week I had been preparing them for the show. At home, I played The Nutcracker Suite. They asked to hear the music and they danced, turning and spinning with their arms in the air. They played with my old Barbie doll dressed in a tutu and another ballerina doll. "Where are we going on Saturday?" I'd ask. "Nutcracker ballet," they'd reply. "And what do we need to be?" "Quiet--Sssssh," they'd say.

At the PNB matinee, Emily patiently sat in my lap. Ian squirmed. They were both quiet, but I soon found out that quiet is relative. Lights out, music, and boom! Ian shot out of his seat, whistling. The cannons were loud! Emily insisted, "Excuse me ... dance," and slid down my legs and was out in the aisle. A dozen people turned around, I scooped her up, and she continued dancing in the lobby, listening to the music, and joining her brother and dad. Ask them, "Where did you go on Saturday?" and they say, "Nutcracker. Listen to Nutcracker." And what did you see there? "Kids," they say, "Lots of kids."

Does it bother the dancers when the children in the audience react and respond noisily? Not principal dancer Louise Nadeau, the mother of a preschooler herself. "Usually in the second act is when we'll hear a crying baby--someone who's tired--and we smile." Nadeau thinks of her daughter, Emma, in the audience, fidgeting and cheering for mom, and says, "For me the family interest comes not just from the ballet itself but from the audience. I think of who's there, all the generations, and that it's such a happy family moment. That is what

Nutcracker is all about--being with your family."

Some tips from moms include advice to attend a matinee or children's performance where expectations for your children's or young guest's behavior are realistic and more relaxed. Prepare youngsters for what they will see, and use positive reinforcement when they have performed as well as can be expected for their age group. --Dance Magazine correspondent Gigi Berardi is also the author of Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance (Princeton Book Company, Publishers).

According to John Munger, Director of Information Services for Dance/USA (a service organization for professional dance companies), their survey found that productions of The Nutcracker are often an economic necessity, providing 42.4 percent of annual ticket revenue to large ballet companies ($5 million-plus budgets) and 59.3 percent for medium-size ballet companies. In addition, retired dancers earn extra money coaching young artists so they can accept holiday engagements as guests in smaller companies. This month's Dance Magazine Calendar and Web site list 108 different Nutcrackers. There are also Nutcrackers on ice and Nutcracker puppet ballets. (The snowflakes become a snowman for ease of handling.) Nutcrackers are everywhere. They are part of our culture. In Northport, New YorK, Elsa Posey's children's company dances The Barefoot Nutcracker. A School of American Ballet alumna, Posey recognizes that even very young prospective dancers can assimilate this part of our culture into their bodies by dancing it.

Not all nutcrackers are to be found onstage. Clark's Nutcracker is a lovely bird found in whitebark pine forests. There's a medical condition called "nutcracker esophagus" characterized by extremely painful swallowing; a calligraphic typeface designed by Richard Lipton for publisher David Godine's Christmas book on ballet; porting software called NuTCRACKER; a recording of a klezmer Nutcracker available from Newport Classics; Nutcracker Ale and a Nutcracker Shooter (vodka, Frangelico and cream); even a Nutcracker Golf and Health Club at Pecan Plantation, Texas.

Beyond advertising, why do we have visions of Sugar Plums dancing in our heads this time of year? Are the party scene and gift-giving the only things that anchor The Nutcracker to this holiday season? I think not, for clustered around the Winter Solstice--the turning of the earth on December 20--are major cultural and religious markings for most of humankind. We mark the nativity of Jesus and call it Christmas; the eight-day festivals of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa; the Hindu Magh Mela Fair; the Feast of St. Nicholas, that sneaky archbishop who placed gold coins in girls' stockings as they dried on the hearth, so they might have dowry enough to wed; Twelfth Night, or the Feast of the Three Kings bearing gifts; a wide assortment of New Years on different calendars.

Most are joyous, thankful communal celebrations and, for better or worse, we seem to have made The Nutcracker an icon, adopted this music and marked our calendars. Perhaps it is the feeling of flight we get when hearing a great orchestra playing in harmony, or feeling the elevation of a dancer transcending the pull of gravity. Perhaps it is knowing that there are dreams to be realized for a child--or a choreographer. And walking out into the dusk, realizing that memories are like snowflakes, each wondrous and unique and ephemeral, and that there will be more next year.