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Toy Story
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This is a ballet that’s so appealing, it can stand up to any kind of production and still satisfy at some level. What never changes is Tchaikovsky’s glorious music and the story of a little girl next door named Clara, whose brother pesters her throughout their family’s Christmas party and breaks the Nutcracker doll that her uncle-godfather has given her. In the first act, we see all the cousins, aunts, and uncles in their best clothes, Uncle Drosselmeyer’s magic tricks, the overheated emotions of kids at a big party, with all the presents and the beautiful tree; and how, after the party, Clara comes back down to the living room to find her new doll, falls asleep, and, in a dream, shrinks to the size of a mouse, has to fight off a monstrous army of vermin with the help of the Nutcracker and her other toys, and brains the mouse king with her shoe.
. . .
A small-town recital can be a delightful thing, if you know at least one of the children involved. Since the Nutcracker is about a little girl, not a whole lot of skill is required for the ballet to enchant. But a big-city opera-house production, with fine dancers and a live orchestra, can be thrilling: snow falling from the skies, a tree that grows to giant size, apparitions materializing through trapdoors—the kinds of stage magic that lighting and costumes, scrims and stage fog, and, most of all, ballet technique can create. A Sugar Plum Fairy who darts about on tiptoe, standing, almost swimming, in the air, who really seems fairylike—well, that is something to see. A ballerina in full flight can create effects that make computer-generated wonders and trick photography seem flat by comparison.
For six decades, San Francisco Ballet’s productions have been holiday extravaganzas; the most recent version has pulled audiences back and wowed them again for 18 years. But over the past decade, under artistic director Helgi Tomasson, the company has risen spectacularly in the world’s esteem. Only a quarter the size of the Kirov or Paris Opera ballets, San Francisco Ballet is now considered one of the most exciting ballet companies in the world. The standard of dancing is extraordinarily high, and the current crop of dancers can turn this sweet story into something visionary, fantastical, even haunting. This group has long been ready for a new production that makes full use of the effects they can command. That production opens this month, and it should be truly magical.
. . .
A small-town recital can be a delightful thing, if you know at least one of the children involved. Since the Nutcracker is about a little girl, not a whole lot of skill is required for the ballet to enchant. But a big-city opera-house production, with fine dancers and a live orchestra, can be thrilling: snow falling from the skies, a tree that grows to giant size, apparitions materializing through trapdoors—the kinds of stage magic that lighting and costumes, scrims and stage fog, and, most of all, ballet technique can create. A Sugar Plum Fairy who darts about on tiptoe, standing, almost swimming, in the air, who really seems fairylike—well, that is something to see. A ballerina in full flight can create effects that make computer-generated wonders and trick photography seem flat by comparison.
For six decades, San Francisco Ballet’s productions have been holiday extravaganzas; the most recent version has pulled audiences back and wowed them again for 18 years. But over the past decade, under artistic director Helgi Tomasson, the company has risen spectacularly in the world’s esteem. Only a quarter the size of the Kirov or Paris Opera ballets, San Francisco Ballet is now considered one of the most exciting ballet companies in the world. The standard of dancing is extraordinarily high, and the current crop of dancers can turn this sweet story into something visionary, fantastical, even haunting. This group has long been ready for a new production that makes full use of the effects they can command. That production opens this month, and it should be truly magical.
