Cover photo: Pacific Northwest Ballet company dancers in the snow scene from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, choreographed by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust (Photo © Angela Sterling)
The festivities at McCaw Hall for this season’s Nutcracker start out in the lobby, which was thronged Friday night with crowds of excited children and adults alike having photos taken with mockups of Mother Ginger, the birch forest, the Prince and Clara’s throne, and, no mockup, the enormous Christmas tree. Plus magicians, free treats (peppermint roca on your way out at the end), and more.
Pacific Northwest Ballet pulls out all the stops for this production (running through December 28, 2016) which brings in a large part of the company’s annual revenue, and makes it a memorable occasion for all the attendees as well as for the 140 children from the PNB School (not to mention their devoted, hardworking, and helpful parents) and up to 40 of its Professional Division students.
Last year, PNB took the successful risk of retiring the 32-year run of the popular, crowd-pleasing Stowell-Sendak version of The Nutcracker and bringing in the Balanchine choreography with new sets and costumes by another children’s author, Ian Falconer of “Olivia the Pig” fame. Over 100,000 people attended and, judging by Friday night, this year’s 38 performances will prove as great a draw, perhaps an antidote to the bruising election year just ended.
From the painted boxes and their inhabitants at the side of the proscenium with Olivia’s snout poking over the edge, to the video during the overture which draws us into a snowy New England Christmas in the late 19th century, to the colorful party scene, the sets and costumes are as big a part as the choreography. It’s not until the end of the first half that we really begin to see Balanchine’s work, with the splendid fight between the mice and the toy soldiers, a delight to watch, and then the beautiful dance of the Snowflakes among the leafless birch trees, snow falling.
The success of Balanchine’s vision is less contingent on any one dancer, but on the high level of work by all concerned both as dancers and actors, whether corps, students both large and small, and the many soloists in brief roles. There are only two star roles plus one supporting, that of the Sugar Plum Fairy, danced Friday by Leta Biasucci, the Dew Drop with Noelani Pantastico in the role, and Sugar Plum’s Cavalier, Benjamin Griffiths.
Biasucci was not in her best form for her first appearance with the small golden angels, the sparkle missing and her balance slightly off a couple of times, but she made up for that dancing with Griffiths in a formal pas de deux at the ballet’s end. However the beautifully trained twelve young angels gliding around the stage in their bell shaped skirts with tall candles made an enchanting kaleidoscope of movement.
Pantastico holds the eye whenever she is onstage. Her grace and the exquisite quality and phrasing of her movements made her Dewdrop sheer delight, set off by the Flowers dancing with her in their glorious peach and salmon dresses. Eden Anan as Clara and Owen Odegard as her naughty little brother Fritz, with Owen Thompson as Herr Drosselmeier’s nephew (transformed in Clara’s dream to the Nutcracker and then to the Prince) carried off their roles with aplomb.
Other notable moments included Uko Gorter returned to the company as the slightly spooky godfather Drosselmeier, swooping around half-magical, producing delights; Leah Merchant and Joshua Grant as the Spanish-flavored Hot Chocolate, Laura Tisserand as a sensuous peacock symbolizing Coffee, James Moore leaping through hoops as the lead Candy Cane, Rachel Foster as delectable lead of the Marzipan Shepherdesses, and Steven Loch wearing the enormous skirt as Mother Ginger with her eight tiny Polichinelles escaping from underneath: all helped maintain the company’s fine production standards in Balanchine’s most varied of all Christmas stories.
James F. Ingall’s lighting creates more magic, such as the party room at night, and when it and the tree start growing, or the snowy light in the forest, adding to the ambiance. All this was helped along by the excellent work of the PNB orchestra with Tchaikovsky’s music sounding as fresh as if just composed, conducted by Emil de Cou, with Michael Jinsoo Lim as the violin soloist. “We know the music inside out,” comments principal horn Rodger Burnett, “but we have to be on our toes throughout, all the same.”
