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[dirac]

Pix of Darcey Bussell and family at the pre-performance party for ENB's Nutcracker.

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The party took place at the St Martin's Lane Hotel, before the celebrities popped over to the Coliseum for the actual ballet.

[dirac]

A review of San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker by Paul Parish in The Bay Area Reporter.

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Nowadays, we're not living in an era that's filled with nostalgia. We're uneasy. Even with gay marriage on the rise, and gay adoption and family-making turning up in sitcoms and A-list Hollywood movies, the gay angle on Nutcracker would still be an ironic one were it not for the absolute sincerity of Tchaikovsky's music, which idealizes and embraces the family circle and makes it seem more wonderful than Neverneverland. No-one can fail to hear how Tchaikovsky longed for a return to childhood, to the era before sexual desire stuck out its horns and created longings that could not be fulfilled. Tchaikovsky was one of us queers, and he also longed for a kind of home-life and stability he could never have. He did marry, then he nearly succeeded in killing himself to escape the prison his marriage created. In The Nutcracker, he created the world he couldn't inhabit in life.