Jack Reed Posted December 4, 2022 Share Posted December 4, 2022 When I watch ballet, I like to see what I hear. It doesn’t have to be obvious, “step-for-note”, but if I can’t discover some relation between what I see and what I hear, I remain outside it. So when people ask me whether they should see The Nutcracker - meaning, here in Chicago, the Joffrey one, I say, no, see Ballet Chicago’s Nutcracker instead; it’s three times the fun and one-third the price: Watching it, I see the music. I hear nothing in Tchaikovsky’s music about building a world’s fair (which took place here in Chicago in 1893), the story the Joffrey production loads onto it; I do hear a warm domestic scene, a party with activities for the guests, which gives way to nightmarish conflict and then to sumptuous resolution. (Not to mention virtual outlines for stage action, mostly for the cast, but not least, for the scenery itself.) But how can something so good be so cheap? Ballet Chicago is an excellent school, where the dancers aren’t on salary, they’re paying tuition; the musicians are on well-chosen recordings, so they’re not getting paid, either; Nutcracker needs only three backdrops, and a few props to carry the story (which you can see at the links I provide below), including a Christmas tree (a more modest one than the 41-foot tree in the NYCB production, though); and costumes - not only good-looking costumes to see but costumes which move well - I’ve learned elsewhere not to take that for granted - made by “The Guild of the Golden Needle,” several mothers of the dancers in the school. This communal aspect, amateur in the best sense - not just people engaged in something without pay, but people who are engaged in it for their love of it, gives the production a charm the professional companies can lack while showing us choreography that may be better “heard” than theirs: Watching Ballet Chicago, I’m happy to see what I hear. This Nutcracker is mainly the work of B.C.’s Artistic Director, Daniel Duell, not only a dancer who danced for George Balanchine in his NYCB, but an amateur musician as well, and Ted Seymour, who danced in the Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Indeed, these and other staff have developed in the Balanchine tradition, and the school uses mostly Balanchine choreography as its syllabus. Their “Sugar Plum” pas de deux is mostly Balanchine’s; Duell has made a male variation to replace the Balanchine one, said to be lost. Duell’s “partner in life as well as in art”, as he refers to his wife, is Patricia Blair, who danced in the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island when Edward Villella was Artistic Advisor. Now she directs the school and rehearses this production. Here is a link to a BC webpage where you can glimpse the work of those golden needles, among other things: https://www.balletchicago.org/nutcracker There are a bunch more still images on another page on the B.C. site, including the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier (but no video of them in motion; showing Balanchine has restrictions), and many shots of the slightly-disorganized three-year-old-bunny number from the matinees: https://www.balletchicago.org/the-nutcracker. But dance is movement! Here’s video of one of their numbers most popular with the audience, the last scene of Act One, “Snow”: https://vimeo.com/247428800 Here’s the “Waltz of the Flowers,” the second number from the end of Act Two, as the ballet builds toward the Finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mccLr5EY8ng Here’s an abridgment of another version of that number, with Emily Fugett in the lead role, ‘Dewdrop’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa8bxUHOHa4 Here’s the whole first act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwYYsWHHIw (Their second act is not on the Internet in its entirety, as far as I know, just “Flowers”.) And here’s a link to the Athenaeum, where the show goes on, for its twentieth year, for the showtimes: https://athenaeumcenter.org/events/2022/the-nutcracker/ Link to comment
California Posted December 4, 2022 Share Posted December 4, 2022 9 hours ago, Jack Reed said: When I watch ballet, I like to see what I hear. It doesn’t have to be obvious, “step-for-note”, but if I can’t discover some relation between what I see and what I hear, I remain outside it. So when people ask me whether they should see The Nutcracker - meaning, here in Chicago, the Joffrey one, I say, no, see Ballet Chicago’s Nutcracker instead; it’s three times the fun and one-third the price: Watching it, I see the music. I hear nothing in Tchaikovsky’s music about building a world’s fair (which took place here in Chicago in 1893), the story the Joffrey production loads onto it; I do hear a warm domestic scene, a party with activities for the guests, which gives way to nightmarish conflict and then to sumptuous resolution. (Not to mention virtual outlines for stage action, mostly for the cast, but not least, for the scenery itself.) But how can something so good be so cheap? Ballet Chicago is an excellent school, where the dancers aren’t on salary, they’re paying tuition; the musicians are on well-chosen recordings, so they’re not getting paid, either; Nutcracker needs only three backdrops, and a few props to carry the story (which you can see at the links I provide below), including a Christmas tree (a more modest one than the 41-foot tree in the NYCB production, though); and costumes - not only good-looking costumes to see but costumes which move well - I’ve learned elsewhere not to take that for granted - made by “The Guild of the Golden Needle,” several mothers of the dancers in the school. This communal aspect, amateur in the best sense - not just people engaged in something without pay, but people who are engaged in it for their love of it, gives the production a charm the professional companies can lack while showing us choreography that may be better “heard” than theirs: Watching Ballet Chicago, I’m happy to see what I hear. This Nutcracker is mainly the work of B.C.’s Artistic Director, Daniel Duell, not only a dancer who danced for George Balanchine in his NYCB, but an amateur musician as well, and Ted Seymour, who danced in the Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Indeed, these and other staff have developed in the Balanchine tradition, and the school uses mostly Balanchine choreography as its syllabus. Their “Sugar Plum” pas de deux is mostly Balanchine’s; Duell has made a male variation to replace the Balanchine one, said to be lost. Duell’s “partner in life as well as in art”, as he refers to his wife, is Patricia Blair, who danced in the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island when Edward Villella was Artistic Advisor. Now she directs the school and rehearses this production. Here is a link to a BC webpage where you can glimpse the work of those golden needles, among other things: https://www.balletchicago.org/nutcracker There are a bunch more still images on another page on the B.C. site, including the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier (but no video of them in motion; showing Balanchine has restrictions), and many shots of the slightly-disorganized three-year-old-bunny number from the matinees: https://www.balletchicago.org/the-nutcracker. But dance is movement! Here’s video of one of their numbers most popular with the audience, the last scene of Act One, “Snow”: https://vimeo.com/247428800 Here’s the “Waltz of the Flowers,” the second number from the end of Act Two, as the ballet builds toward the Finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mccLr5EY8ng Here’s an abridgment of another version of that number, with Emily Fugett in the lead role, ‘Dewdrop’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa8bxUHOHa4 Here’s the whole first act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwYYsWHHIw (Their second act is not on the Internet in its entirety, as far as I know, just “Flowers”.) And here’s a link to the Athenaeum, where the show goes on, for its twentieth year, for the showtimes: https://athenaeumcenter.org/events/2022/the-nutcracker/ Thank you for this very informative and interesting review of Ballet Chicago's Nutcracker. In early 2021, during the worst days of the COVID shut-down, they showed (free!) the Balanchine Swan Lake. I remember thinking I would really like to see this company if I have a reason to get to Chicago some day. I'm wondering how successful the school's graduates are in finding professional employment in other companies. Do you know? Link to comment
Recommended Posts