5 replies to this topic

[Amy Reusch]

I understand that that they are Cake Flowers, in keeping with the rest of the dessert treats... but what is the ethnicity? (or are they like Sugarplum, whom I assume has no ethnicity but reigns over them all... sugar on high so to speak?

Lately been wondering if they are Viennese?  White cake flowers ~  debutantes at a ball?  Is a Viennese waltz different musically from a regular waltz?

Just wondering... wandering...  

... the season is coming nigh...

[Mel Johnson]

Let's not overthink this!  

Late nineteenth century waltzes, whether Viennese, French or Russian were fast waltzes, beaten "in one" rather than the valses lentes of the early nineteenth, which were, by the Imperial period, being called "polka mazurkas" even though a mazurka step was nowhere to be seen.

[rg]

the original color scheme for the valse des fleurs was gold and included couples, 36 in number. it was intended for the first production (a  Vsevolozhsky costume sketch notes "Grand Balabile"and shows a couple linked by a garland, if mem. serves, the number was meant to recapture the success of the Valse Villageoise, the so-called "garland dance" from the 1890 SLEEPING BEAUTY.

[cubanmiamiboy]

rg, on 31 October 2010 - 06:29 AM, said:

the original color scheme for the valse des fleurs was gold and included couples, 36 in number. it was intended for the first production (a  Vsevolozhsky costume sketch notes "Grand Balabile"and shows a couple linked by a garland, if mem. serves, the number was meant to recapture the success of the Valse Villageoise, the so-called "garland dance" from the 1890 SLEEPING BEAUTY.

Here they are...also from rg, of course...!  

[Amy Reusch]

Hmmm... can't say there's anything there reminiscent of frosting or a Viennese ball..... oh well... seemed a good way to tie it all together.

36 Couples?  Wow... that's a lot!  Or was it 18 couples?

[rg]

Mel's suggesting one not 'overthink' such things is something that would be wisely practiced by many NUTCRACKER producers nowadays who work overtime and worse to 'explain' and give 'logic' to everything in the ballet - as i believe Balanchine once said, simply: 'it's magic!' - it's not reality - a related thought was expressed today in NYC at a performance of the 500-year-old theatrical art known as Kunqu; a speaker for the art suggested that it stressed magic, not realism.