PNB’s Balanchine ‘Nutcracker’ Welcomes Everyone to the Holidays

Cover image: Pacific Northwest Ballet soloists Kyle Davis as Toy Soldier, and Ezra Thomson as Herr Drosselmeier, with company dancers in a scene from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, choreographed by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Sets and costumes designed by children’s author and illustrator Ian Falconer (Olivia the Pig). (Photo © Angela Sterling)

This is the third season of George Balanchine’s choreography for The Nutcracker at Pacific Northwest Ballet, which this year runs until December 28 at McCaw Hall. After 32 years of the Kent Stowell/Maurice Sendak version with all its delights, it has not taken long for the new-to-Seattle Balanchine/Ian Falconer version to take hold, judging by the festive, excited crowds on Friday’s opening night at McCaw Hall. The lobby-full of little girls in all their finery with mothers in theirs, families taking photos in scenery-filled booths, gave way to a jammed full auditorium for the performance itself.

The performance shone. There’s no other word for it. From the first moments of the familiar music of the Overture, when the video created the illusion we were in a flying sleigh zooming through snow-covered New England a century and more ago, to the last final moments with all the second act company on stage in all the colors of the rainbow, the production was enchanting. PNB’s dancers were at the top of their form as were the beautifully trained student dancers of the PNB school, from the littlest Polichinelles to the Professional Level older ones poised to begin their careers.

The first act with the party, the growing tree, the battle of the mice and the toy soldiers and excited children got high marks for the acting of all concerned, not least the child Clara, believably acted and danced by Samrawit Saleem, her naughty little brother Fritz, acted with aplomb by Adrien Hoshi, and the well-mannered and elegant young nephew/Nutcracker, Hugo Mestres.

The balletic dancing starts with the Snowflakes and there have been times in the past when they have sounded too heavy footed for their ethereal personas. Not this time, and not just them. The entire company of dancers was noticeably light on its feet throughout the performance.

Sarah Ricard Orza as the Sugar Plum Fairy seemed to float in a performance which was also very musical, both when she was guiding the tiny angels (how did they teach those little kids to glide so smoothly?) but particularly in her major pas de deux with her Cavalier (also her husband), Seth Orza. After a couple of measures at the start when they were not entirely together, they danced in perfect synchrony and with lovely control. Seth Orza made an excellent partner, always right there and unobtrusively allowing her to keep her movements fluid, graceful and with poised balance. He came into his own with a solo which showed off his musicianship also, as well as his fine footwork, leaps and amazingly fast, neat turns.

Elizabeth Murphy as Dewdrop danced with seemingly effortless ease and balance, also with a sense of the music’s beat. Ryan Cardea gave extraordinary high jumps as Tea, James Moore’s nimble Candy Cane double hoop jumps is surely something that anyone who still owns a hula hoop is going to try out, and Henry Cotton’s Mother Ginger, sidling on in his enormous hooped skirt, preening with his mirror while letting all the Polichinelles out to dance on their own, was a hit too.

The second act is tied together by Falconer’s candy-land set and made colorful with his imaginative choices for costumes, particularly the peach-apricot layers in the Flowers’ tutus, enhanced by James F. Ingall’s lighting.

And the entire performance is tied together by Tchaikovsky’s music, played by the PNB orchestra as freshly as though they had never done it before, under conductor Emil de Cou. Not every dance company has its own orchestra and it makes a big difference when the conductor can sense the speed of a dancer’s moves and see that the music fits accordingly.