"The Nutcracker"
American Ballet Theatre
Opera House
J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, D.C.
December 18, 2007
by Alexandra Tomalonis
copyright 2007 by Alexandra Tomalonis
For decades, "The Nutcracker" has been a holiday staple in America,
beloved of children, their parents, and ballet fans, partly because of
the beautiful Tchaikovsky score, partly because it's become a holiday
staple, and also because it's enchanting. Much of the magic is in the
music, but there's also magic in the party scene (in theory) and its
presentation of a perfect world where, for one night a year, everyone
is nice to everyone else, and there's magic in the land of the Sugar
Plum Fairy and the power of classical dancing. This is a formula that's
worked for 50 years (the ballet was choreographed more than 100 years
ago, but didn't become the ballet version of Holiday on Ice until
fairly recently), it's how "Nutcracker" is usually advertised — and so, of
course, it makes perfect sense that ballet companies have been taking
out the magic and reducing "The Nutcracker" to a sallow, nasty little
routine.
At first, American Ballet Theatre's version, which opened a one-week run here Tuesday night, looks like a traditional production. There's a tree, a Christmas Party, a Sugar Plum Fairy and some beautiful costumes in the party scene. But it also has a drunken grandmother, a party guest who's a very nasty groper and who has an obnoxious child, inept toy soldiers who do everything but run each other through with their bayonets, and an oversexed unicorn. When the production was new, it had a libretto by the late Wendy Wasserstein that was full of ideas, most of which were dramatically confusing and didn't work on stage. These have been removed, but nothing has been put in their place. What's left is a very bare bones production with a few oddities, perfunctory choreography (by company artistic director Kevin McKenzie)) and precious little magic.
A brilliant suite of dances in the second Act's Kingdom of the Sweets might save the show, but the choreography is so simplistic that it exposes the company's current classical style: athletic men who do not seem encouraged to be elegant, and women so lyrical they could be blown over by a strong breeze; there's no guts to their dancing. They don't walk or run; they patter, waving their arms up and down in front of them in someone's idea, one supposes, of "pretty." It's not the dancers' fault — there are wonderful dancers in this company — but this ballet does not serve them well.
Dancers have a wonderful way of rising above mediocre material, and I was charmed by Maria Riccetto's Clara, the little girl who receives a Nutcracker for Christmas. I can't remember seeing another adult dancer so convincing as a child, and her dancing, especially in the snow scene, was beautifully clear. Her Nutcracker was Sascha Radetsky (replacing Gennadi Saveliev), who has become a very strong partner, and for once the snow pas de deux looked like a pas de deux rather than a wrestling match. There were some beautiful moments, too, in Paloma Herrera's Sugar Plum.The technique is always sure, and she has worked and worked on her arms until they can produce lovely, soft shapes, but this can't mask the fact that she doesn't have the delicacy and authority for this kind of role, especially in a production where Sugar Plum only appears at the end of the act (Snow Queen does hostess duties at the beginning). It was good to see Ethan Stiefel again as Herrera's cavalier, dancing softly, perhaps not yet completely recovered from a serious injury, but very gallant.
The character dances are so undistinguished that even very fine dancers make little impact in them. The evening's ballerina was Veronika Part as the Snow Queen, lost among all the pittery pattery snowflakes, as though abandoned by her no-show Snow Prince. Part is magnificent in adagio, with her beauty and her commanding presence. Nothing is going to turn her into a gyroscope — that's not her employ — but give her the right material and she makes it sing. It's a shame she doesn't have a choreographer who can use her gifts.
This "Nutcracker" has been tinkered with since its premiere. It's probably time to start over. Whoever makes the next ABT "Nutcracker," I hope they remember the dancers — and the audience — and give us a little magic. We see drunken party guests all too often in civilian life.
