Nutcracker season, once again

(Los Angeles Ballet at the Alex Theatre, performing The Nutcracker.)

It's the holidays, so basically everything having to do with ballet and dance around here becomes The Nutcracker. Much to my annoyance. I mean, I love the charming Tchaikovsky score, and when done right, the ballet has the potential to be be a real treat. But the trouble is, I'm stuck here with regional, school and otherwise bland Nuts from November to December. I dream of a beautiful Nutcracker production to match my regard for the ballet's music, and give me some real, watchable dancing as well.

Los Angeles Ballet entered the fold last year aiming to give Los Angeles its own professional, regional ballet troupe. And so they presented a Nutcracker to start, but I skipped it last year, since by the time it arrived I was already full into Nutcracker fatigue. I thought I'd give their production a shot this year since I so enjoyed their repertory performances last season.

But while LAB's Nutcracker is a serviceable production, I was not impressed on Thursday night. At least when you're watching a ballet school Nutcracker, there is great fun in watching the young students scurry around and show off what they've learned during their ballet lessons - some sentimental value there when the production isn't doing much in the theatrical or dramatic department. But when a professional troupe does Nutcracker, I feel that there needs to be a cogent narrative and real dancing - basically a solid justification for an audience to spend time (and money) watching the performance. Los Angeles Ballet's production is fussy, the narrative is not particularly clear (or it's not staged very well because what's written in the program notes is not necessarily what materialized onstage), and the choreography and dancing are all just sort of there: the dancers do it well, but I wasn't engaged enough to care. There are kids in the production, but they aren't used much and the effect of the busy party scene is to make them more bratty than cute. The physical production was attractive, but I didn't care so much when the stuff going on within the set was bland. Bottom line, I was bored.

As I usually do, I will get my Nutcracker cheer from productions on DVD: one of my favorites is the Royal Ballet's 2000 recording of Sir Peter Wright's production, with Alina Cojocaru, Ivan Putrov, Miyako Yoshida and Jonathan Cope. It's a particularly lavish show: enormous sets that positively glow and shimmer, and it's also wonderfully acted and pristinely danced. The story hearkens back to the original ETA Hoffman tale and draws out a lot of European traditions in the staging (the Stahlbaum household actually looks and acts German!), while the staging is well directed to focus the action into key moments propelling the story forward. Though the choreography doesn't quite equal Balanchine's version (see below), all the dramatic, performance and elaborate visual elements of this production make up for it in spades.

My other big favorite is George Balanchine's Nutcracker, on DVD in a 1993 film version of New York City Ballet's production starring Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker and danced by Darci Kistler as Sugar Plum and Kyra Nicols as Dewdrop. Balanchine's choreography sparkles - where Act 2 is a bore in regional productions, it's sheer delight here (some balletomanes in New York show up just for Act 2 at City Ballet's production to see cast changes in the divertissements). And the way Balanchine uses children in the production brings a joy and innocence to the ballet that would likely cheer up any Christmas Scrooge. A dream holiday trip would be to see this production live at the New York State Theatre. Or the Royal's for that matter! I even hear San Francisco has a pretty decent Nutcracker as well. (Actually, really, send me to London so I can also see the Royal's new, well reviewed Jewels...)

I might feel differently about seeing The Nutcracker live if I lived in London or New York. But I hit the dance doldrums every Christmas when the Nutcrackers begin. My real ballet fix will have to wait until February, when there is going to be ballet event after ballet event nearly every week, including Los Angeles Ballet doing The Four Temperaments, one of my favorite Balanchine ballets. And let's not forget visits from the big stars: Diana Vishneva and Nina Ananiashvili. Patience, patience...