Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker at The Kennedy Center

[The Traveling Ballerina]

This was definitely unlike any other Nutcracker I've ever seen! As mentioned in my review, I did not provide too much detail as I didn't want to ruin the element of surprise for anyone planning on seeing it; but if you want to hear about anything in particular, I'm happy to share!

[pherank]

If it matters - Sarah L. Kaufman of the Washington Post wrote:
'In the Atlanta Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” which opened at the Kennedy Center Opera House on Wednesday, just about every detail of the standard holiday ballet is whomped up, rethought and mined for either laughs or meaning or both. I have seen a lot of “Nutcrackers,” and this one, created by Yuri Possokhov, resident choreographer at San Francisco Ballet, tops them all as the most entertaining as well as the smartest.'

[YouOverThere]

17 hours ago, The Traveling Ballerina said:

This was definitely unlike any other Nutcracker I've ever seen! As mentioned in my review, I did not provide too much detail as I didn't want to ruin the element of surprise for anyone planning on seeing it; but if you want to hear about anything in particular, I'm happy to share!

You've left me curious as to what you considered to be surprising. The things that surprised me were all negative.

[Drew]

Thank you for your review @The Traveling Ballerina . If people have the time and/or interest, then I would love to hear in more detail from everyone what their thoughts were, positive and negative, about the production and the dancers....

(I wrote about the production in some detail on this site last year when it premiered. I found it more ingenious than magical, though I still enjoyed the performance I saw a lot. I'm also on record as a huge fan of Airi Igarashi--Nikolas Gaifullin, too, but how one reacts to him in this ballet might entirely depend on one's reaction to the production. I think that's a little less true of Igarashi in her role as the grown-up/dream Marie.)

Edited to add that I just saw that @YouOverThere gave a review on another thread discussing the company's Nutcracker venue. 

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Drew

[YouOverThere]

It's certainly been a financial success, with 6 out of the 7 shows (all but the Thanksgiving show) being essentially sold out, and even the Thanksgiving show sold more than 90 percent of the seats (the stated capacity of the Opera House is 2364).

I had Emily Carrico and Moises Martin as Marie and the Prince (they did 3 of the shows, as did Airi Igarashi and Vitor Luiz) and Jacob Bush as Drosselmeier. Given that I 1) only watched 1 performance and 2) didn't think that the choreography was in general all that challenging (though Carrico did some fairly complicated pointe work in the final pas de duex), I don't have an opinion on their abilities.

Edited December 1, 2019 by YouOverThere