The Moscow Ballet is bringing its "Great Russian" production of the iconic Nutcracker Ballet to 60 American and Canadian cities. This is the famed Russian company's 19th American tour, during which local ballet students throughout North America audition to join the cast as mice, angels, snowflakes, and exotic dancers when the production performs in their home communities. More than 1000 children will take part.
The ballet, which premiered in St. Petersburg Russia in 1892, has become a holiday staple worldwide. Nutcracker productions range from comical to traditional, whimsical to outrageous, and everything in between; the Moscow Ballet's version is classically Russian.
What's interesting about this production is that it manages to pack all the spectacle, the costuming, and the magic into a jewel box-sized version. For the most part the Moscow Ballet skips the big cities that have their own iconic productions: Audiences in some urban centers like New York, Seattle, and Boston have an entrenched Nutcracker tradition, and face it, not much is going to complete with Lincoln Center's magic growing Christmas tree or the staging extravaganza in Boston every year. Not to mention having a full-sized live orchestra. (The Moscow touring version uses recorded music.)
But the Moscow production is perfectly scaled to fit smaller theaters. I saw it in the 675-seat Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. There's no room to fly a chariot across the stage, let alone a 60-foot tall growing Christmas tree. But what you lose in size you gain in intimacy: The Mahaiwe is a carefully restored old movie-house where every seat feels like you're almost on stage yourself.
So: No growing Christmas tree, no live orchestra, and a touring cast of only about 40 dancers. (There are two separate companies touring, one in eastern North America and one in western North America.) It didn't sound like the spectacle of my childhood's "home" Nutcracker production, which just so happens to be the New York City Ballet's version. On the other hand, Russian staging, Russian dancers, and Russian choreography: How much more authentic can you get?
The Staging of the Moscow Great Russian Nutcracker
What's often interesting about Nutcracker stagings is how they differently interpret and imagine the story. I've heard the little girl who is the center of the story called Clara and Maria; in Moscow she is Masha, a possibly irrelevant distinction, as of course, no one calls anyone anything in a ballet. In some interpretations, she is a child throughout. In others, the child Masha dreams of becoming a princess, and once the dreams starts, she is played by an adult who dances the big solos and pas de deux of the Second Act. Godfather (or Uncle) Drosselmeyer can be magical and sparkly or darkly mysterious; here he is the former, a benevolent magician who produces marvels and mysteries. Little brother Fritz, of course, is universally annoying.
The staging mostly changes by using different backdrops, showing us the party scene, the winter wonderland, and the Henri Rousseau-inspired magic kingdom. In the second act, some of the dancers are accompanied by giant creatures (of the two-people-make-one-horse) variety, including a pair of massive elephants, a Chinese dragon, and what I believe might have been a hippopotamus, who amused the audience by taking several curtain calls. The costumes were bright and beautiful, quite similar to costumes used in other very traditional Russian-style productions.There was also a fair amount of humor: In addition to the applause-hogging hippopotamus, the audience seemed to particularly like watching the male dancers mime staggering home drunk after the end of the First Act party, undoubtedly affected by far too much celebratory vodka.
Once dance, in particular, stood out: Indeed, I'd venture to say that Elena Petrechenko and Sergey Chumakov's "Arabian Dance" might have, in and of itself, been worth the price of admission. It combined aspects of figure skating-style throws and lifts, the gravity-defying balancing acts of circus acrobats, and the flexibility of contortionists, all in the context of perfectly synchronized dance that flowed smooth as water. I'm not sure that Tchaikovsky could have imaged this particular choreography when writing the music, but it fit the music to a "T" and I can't help but think that if the Russians use their language the way we use ours, he'd use the Russian equivalent of "awesome" to describe it.
Local Kids Take to the Nutcracker Stage
Kids, of course, figure heavily in any Nutcracker ballet production. The students at the School of the New York City Ballet have a decades-old history of being mice, soldiers, party-goes, and angels in the Lincoln Center production. Indeed, in that version, the roles of "Masha" (although she is "Marie" in New York) and the Nutcracker are played by children. (In the Moscow version, Masha is played by the same adult dancer throughout).
The Moscow Ballet continues the tradition of using children, but with a twist: Several weeks in advance of the performances, local student dancers in each of the regions where the production will be performed are invited to audition. A dancer from the Moscow Ballet acts as audition director and picks the children who will appear in such roles as mice, party-goers, snowflakes, and angels.
Perhaps it's in the nature of the Nutcracker ballet itself, but the children's roles are choreographed and conceived for children, acting the parts of children, dancing at the level of children. The students have to be able to dance and follow the choreography, of course, and it is real dancing, not just taking up space on stage; some roles require en pointe and formal ballet training. It's also worth noting that some of the dances are extensive and pivotal to the plot: After all, you can't have a war with the mice without a mouse army! But the general impression is that the choreography is inclusive of real children, which contributes a warm and fuzzy feel: These parts are not choreographed for the rare child virtuoso who is destined to become a prima ballerina. We can imagine ourselves and our kids at the party.
After auditions, the audition director teaches the children the parts, which are then rehearsed independently. Interestingly, there isn't much of a communication barrier, because the language of dance is neither English, nor Russian, but French, and whether you were born in Moscow, Russia or Moscow, Idaho, a plie is a plie is a plie.
The Nutcracker ballet has to be one of the most enduring symbols of the Christmas season, an entry into a magical world of peace and harmony where issues of national identify are decided on the grounds of whether you prefer tea or coffee, marzipan or sugar plums. The Moscow Ballet brings an authentic, traditional, and first-rate version of this classic to communities large and small around the United States and inspires children who may one day themselves end up in the roles of grown-up angels, flowers, snowflakes, or even Masha herself.
And, after 19 years, it just may be that this very Russian production has itself become a new American tradition.
Karen Berger - Karen Berger is the author of 15 books. Please click on her name to read her full bio.
