There’s a slyly grinning Nutcracker hanging on my wall. In a poster that proudly proclaims “world premiere,” he’s a red-coated soldier who appears much amused by the Christmas tree balanced on his head.
Seattle has changed a great deal since this poster appeared in 1983. The old oft-remodeled Seattle Opera House where this Nutcracker first made his bow is gone, replaced by the gleaming glass McCaw Hall.
The artistic director and creator of this ballet, who conceived of the grandiose scheme to produce a world-class Nutcracker in a city that barely knew it had a ballet company, has retired.
And so many of the dancers who spun, leaped, and twirled their way across the stage are gone too. The students who became charming mice or Mother Goose’s tots have grown, most leaving ballet for other pursuits but a few forging bold careers of their own in dance far more complicated than those simple figures at Christmas.
They are the ghosts of Nutcrackers past, and I remember them even as I remember where I sat during that first Nutcracker.
Hanging on the edge of my seat in a center box, awed by how beautiful that set was, how huge the Christmas tree that grew right at the end of Act I, and how laughably silly and recognizably Maurice Sendak (he of the Wild Things) were so many odd creatures that popped up through the show.
And, in the second act, I noticed how beautiful and sad was a short sequence with a captured peacock, carried onto the stage in a golden cage, performing her lovely arching, preening dance.
In the 27 years since then, I saw the Nutcrackers only sporadically in the 1980s and 1990s. But around the start of this century, I began making annual pilgrimages to the ballet. The past decade of performances always confirm that my initial delight in this witty rendition of Tchaikovsky’s ballet was not misplaced, even while showing off a company that is now capable of so much more.
And every year now invokes shades of dancers past even as new stars emerge.
This year, Carla Korbes, as Clara, and Batkhurel Bold, as the Prince, demonstrated flawless control over their Act II pas de deux. He’s by far one of the steadiest princes, easily hoisting his Clara high in the air. She is delightfully precise in every pose, legs and arms always pointed perfectly, a ballerina ready to be popped on the top of the jewel box to spin endlessly for the audience’s delight.
As they pass under the lanterns of the Pasha’s palace or leap lightly past bowing mice in colorful turbans, I see ghosts of Patricia Barker and Stanko Milov, another outstanding pair, sweep past, even as I remember how Bold first captured my attention as a madly leaping chief of the warrior mice back in 2000.
Carrie Imler grows ever stronger in the Waltz of the Flowers, leading that movement as she has so often throughout the past ten years with an atheletic flair. And Olivier Wevers, a terrific Prince in years past, is now a dark and rather disturbing Drosselmeier/Pasha.
In the last ten years, my favorite peacock has become Ariana Lallone, the tallest of the famous “tall girls” dancing at PNB. Sadly, this will be my last time to see her unfold from the golden cage, stretch her back into a line usually reserved for impertinent felines, and then leap away from her capturers. Lallone retires at the end of this season.
In time, her peacock will fade into the memories, to be evoked by a whiff of Tchaikovsky’s music over a department store loudspeaker or the sly grin of a Nutcracker pulled out of a closet for display during this season.
And there will be new Princes, new Claras, new peacocks or roses or warrior mice to make me tip forward on my seat in excitement.
Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker continues through Dec. 27 at McCaw Hall. Best ticket prices and seat availability can be found at PNB’s website.
Comments