Once more, with feelings.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

THINK OF "The Nutcracker" ballet and visions of Sugar Plum Fairies, Snow Queens and leaping Cossacks spring to mind. The ballet has it all: beautiful costumes, dreamy sets, gorgeous dancing and spectacular music.

P.I. Tchaikovsky's stunning score is instantly recognizable, a staple of the season. No matter how many times Eugene Ballet choreographer Toni Pimble has heard "The Nutcracker" (probably a few thousand, considering all the rehearsals she has gone through over the years), she always finds the work engaging, especially the lush theme of the Grand Pas de Deux.

Pimble isn't the only one the theme bowls over. As she recalls, "Hyoung (Il Jung), who is a beautiful dancer, was rehearsing with Brett Mills on the first day of rehearsal. He had this big smile on his face. I was looking at him, thinking, `Gosh, I guess he's enjoying himself.'

`Then he suddenly turned and said, `Music so beautiful.' It was very sweet."

The romantic theme comes near the end of the story ballet about a little girl, Clara (danced alternately by Shigemi Kurata and Stephanie Parker), who dreams that the Nutcracker Prince she received as a gift turns into a real- life prince and goes to battle for her.

In the same moment, the ballet's set turns inside out, like a children's storybook, thanks to elaborate sets by ex-Disney designer Don Carson. The sets support Amy Panganiban's bright costumes and Kelly Baum's dramatic lighting.

But for Pimble, it's the music that makes everything work - music that Tchaikovsky himself questioned.

"It's odd that he had so little confidence in his own music," Pimble says. "He would talk about people like (Clement) Delibes (`Coppelia') being far superior to him. But he's not. Tchaikovsky really took ballet music a huge step forward from being this stepsister type of music into being a music that was acceptable to the concert hall.

"I really believe if it hadn't been for him raising the standard of ballet, I don't think we would have had (Igor) Stravinsky writing music for ballet."

Year after year, "The Nutcracker" is a highlight of the Eugene Ballet's season for two simple reasons: It's popular and it puts patrons in the seats. But that's not news. Ballet companies all across America use it as a cash cow. A good production such as Pimble's can roll on for years.

Although doing the same ballet year after year entails some risk of it becoming stale, Pimble says that's not the case with "The Nutcracker."

"I would have quit a long time ago if I didn't enjoy doing this," she insists, "because it's too hard work."

Pimble doesn't see her handiwork every time it is performed. Over the years, she gradually has cut down the amount of traveling she does with the company, leaving the day-to-day business to ballet master Eloy Barragan and ballet mistress Lisa Moon.

However, when she does drop in, she is "looking at the work of the dancers - making sure that they are clean in their execution."

This season, Eugene Ballet will do "The Nutcracker" 28 times in 13 venues across the West. By comparison, the season-opening "Don Quixote" was performed just three times, and only at the Hult Center.

The large number of performances comes with some benefits.

"The most important thing a dancer can do is get on stage and perform," Pimble says. "They have this wonderful opportunity to do that with `The Nutcracker.' And not only to perform, but to perform in a lot of different venues. It just makes them grow as dancers and as performers.

"I always find that by the time we get to Eugene (always the last tour stop), they are so confident because they have been out on stage almost every night."

As a result, Pimble says, "They're able to handle anything that comes their way by the time we get through with `The Nutcracker.' '

Audiences throughout the Western states still enjoy the current production, but Pimble reports that its end is in sight.

"We'll give it a couple more years, then we'll be looking at a new production."

Exactly what that new production will look like Pimble doesn't know just yet. However, she does know the current cartoonish production "will be a hard one to top."

"The challenge is to come up with something equally creative to what Don (Carson) created for us," Pimble says, `but I might be doing it a little more traditional the next time around.

"Although what we're doing is not way offbeat, like Mark Morris' `Hard Nut,' it is less traditional. Most companies don't have skaters in the skating scene, and they don't have the mice running around squeaking at the top of their voice."

Or as much fun.

Arts reporter Fred Crafts can be reached by phone at 338-2575 and by e-mail at [e-mail].

THE NUTCRACKER

WHAT: Eugene Ballet production choreographed by Toni Pimble

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday, 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 23

WHERE: Silva Concert Hall, Hult Center, Seventh and Willamette streets

HOW MUCH: $20 to $67 through the Hult Center box office, 682-5000

GUARDLINE: To hear music from "The Nutcracker," call GuardLine at 485-2000 from a touch-tone phone and request category 3733.

CAPTION(S):

One of the signature scenes in `The Nutcracker' comes when Clara and the Nutcracker Prince journey to the Kingdom of the Sweets, where the entertainment includes Russian dancers.