"It is like performing Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony but on a Broadway show schedule," said Pacific Northwest Ballet music director Emil de Cou about the Nutcracker challenge faced by ballet orchestras across the nation for the next month.
At PNB, it means forty performances of a complex, often brooding piece of music that simultaneously conveys all the light and sweetness of childhood parties and Christmas anticipation.
"It is performed so much that we can forget that it is a great work of a musical genius," said de Cou. "It is emotionally exhausting to play. And classical musicians can't just phone it in. We're trained to give it our all every performance, which is why everyone is a little wrecked by the end of December."
The same is true, of course, for the dancers too. And, with so many versions of the Nutcracker performed around the country, transfering from one company to another can mean something so familiar can suddenly be new and strange, as demonstrated in a PNB video interview with Corps de Ballet dancers Leta Biasucci and Elizabeth Murphy.
But for all the dancers, musicians, choreographers, set designers, costumers, and audiences, the famous, soaring score remains the glue that binds the show together, taking a simple fairytale and turning it into a beloved night at the ballet.
The music also demonstrates what de Cou calls Tchaikovsky's talent to pick up on classical music traditions and new inventions, and then polish those ideas for maximum effect.
"Tchaikovsky wasn’t an innovator, but he looked at people's innovations and perfected them in the music," he said.
Typical of his exploration of musical invention was Tchaikovsk's adoption of the celesta. Invented in 1886, the instrument's light tinkling glockenspiel sound creates the mood of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."
Another older device, the "devil's interval" of notes, can be heard in the ballet, helping to create a mood that unexpected, extraordinary things are just about to happen. Listen to the famous “Waltz of the Snowflakes” that transforms Clara’s world from the party at home into a magical journey, suggested de Cou, and you can hear just how clever Tchaikovsky can be at creating an aural landscape "that leads you away from home and then brings you back" just like Clara.
"There's also the use of woodwinds, often at the lowest possible note, to create a very haunting and melancholy sound," said de Cou. "It's a score that commands the musicians' respect."
Although originally composed as part of the double bill with his opera Iolanta and presented in St. Petersburg in December 1892, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker has enjoyed its greatest success as a stand-alone ballet in the United States, where its simple story and unforgettable music combined to create a magical introduction to classical ballet for generations of children.
PNB’s production of The Nutcracker opens tonight in McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center and continues through Dec. 27.
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