A 'NUTCRACKER' FOR MAKING FRIENDS,
NOT ANEMONES
A New Stimulus Package---the
Dance Version!
By D. Rane Danubian
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of Dec. 14-21, 2009
Vol. 12, No. 48
SAN MATEO---Nothing new under the
sun? How about a joint "Nutcracker," not to be mistaken for a joint of
any other kind.
In these parlous times for
performing companies, two ballet ensembles have found the key to
financial
survival: combining for a joint “Nutcracker” production, now coming to Oakland’s
Paramount
Theatre for a Dec. 24 opening with live orchestra
That perennial Christmas-season “Nutcracker” may sell
thousands of tickets, but assembling a production and rehearsing it is
a
budget-buster severely challenging troupes today. Thus the Peninsula
Ballet
Theatre and the financially strapped Oakland Ballet are amalgamated for
now. Both
cities are the richer for it, as this “Nutcracker”
is an effective if not ultra-opulent show,
executed by an accomplished cast I’d enjoy seeing again.
The
recent sneak previews in San Mateo
showed off a “Nutcracker” differing from the Ronn Guidi version that
has run in
Oakland
for
over 30 years. The Carlos Carvajal version reintroduces
children---well-drilled
ones at that, from many age groups---as well as professional-company
regulars. The
glints of humor in the show are a true delight for young and old---and
even for
rusty crusty critics who have seen and heard “Nutcracker”
more often than Tchaikovsky himself.
Speaking of rusty/crusty, once again we have the old
toymaker Drosselmeyer, sometimes an Old-World
fuddy-duddy, sometimes a near-clone of Uncle Sam who (so far)
has not
picked my pocket for additional tax money. In addition to his magic
tricks and
a high rickety pile of presents that you expect to see cascading across
the
floor any minute, he offers a few chuckles. An arriving party guest
slips and
falls on the “ice” outside, and there is more than one snowfall, all
suggesting
the wintry milieu surrounding the family’s warm hearth.
In
the party scene, the boys are sent off to catch some
mice. A dead one is brought back by a mischievous kid and dangled
before the
horrified gathering.
I got another start: There,
right in the middle of the “Nutcracker” ballet, I encountered a giant
clump of
sea anemones with undulating arms. Was this the aquarium set to dance,
in a whole
new marine-life twist?
No.
Despite all the rain, we’re not underwater yet. On closer examination,
it was
the Waltz of the Flowers with a bevy of blooms beautifully costumed
evolving
into an elegant corps de ballet.
There are a
lot of
embellishments, emergences and maybe marine embroyos in this diverting
show, all to the good in Old Russia,
which is the
setting of the 1892 original by Marius Petipa.
Or
is it Old Germany (the Guidi version)? Or old San Francisco (the S.F.
Ballet version)? None of the above. Choreographer Carvajal sets it in
Merry
Oulde England.
If you are planning to mount your own “Nutcracker,” better pick a
country
before the good ones are all gone.
The
British setting was the impetus for outstanding costume
designs on children and adults alike. They feed into a superb snow
scene full
of ballerina “snowflakes,” which makes up for less effective elements,
like the
rather modest growing Christmas tree, and an underwhelming fight with
the mice
that preceded.
But
the caliber of the (full-grown mature) dancers was
consistently high. The soloists rotate from night to night, but you may
be
lucky enough to catch the newcomer Sara Love in a sinuous and sensual
solo of the
Arabian Dance, where she evolves from a biting snake into an alluring
morsel straight
out of “The Arabian Nights.” Her solo
was the finest performance caught at the Dec. 13 matinee in San Mateo, which served as our preview for Oakland.
The
Sugar Plum Fairy of Edilsa Armendariz was highly appealing
in the concluding Grand Pas de Deux, seen wearing her fuchsia-colored
tutu. She
climaxed her solo work with seemingly endless fouetté
turns, leaving us (and perhaps her) quite breathless,
before she concluded with the dazzling pas
de poisson, her face held just inches above the floor by her
partner.
Choreographer
Carvajal invoked the traditional steps from what's thought to be
the “original” Grand Pas de Deux, but he
innovated elsewhere (as do most today). In an offbeat touch, his
Spanish Dance
is a trio with the man (the nimble sparkplug Norberto Martinez) turning
into a
bullfighter, making passes---yes, those kinds of passes---at the pretty
young
bull (Alexandra Venteer).
For
the Oakland
opener Dec. 24 and beyond, Michael Morgan is conducting members of the
Oakland East
Bay
Symphony in that wonderfully pictorial Tchaikovsky score.
Sounds
like a whole new kind of stimulus package---the dance version!
SPOT
THE CHOREOGRAPHER---After more than 40 years as a
dancer, Carvajal will perform the
opening day in Oakland;
rumor has it that he plays Drosselmeyer. The veteran first created a
“Nutcracker”
for Bordeaux, France 46 years ago, and
has been
mounting it with Peninsula Ballet Theatre, where he has been artistic
director,
since 1994.
What
the Oakland Ballet will do this season
post-‘Nutcracker,’ if anything, remains to be announced at some future
date.
The troupe has not appointed an artistic director since Ronn Guidi left.
“Nutcracker,”
performed jointly by Oakland Ballet and
Peninsula Ballet Theatre. Dec. 24-27 at the Paramount Theatre, Oakland with live
orchestra.
For info: (510)
625-8497, or
go online.
(Also performed Dec. 19-20
at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, (800) 595-4849.)
©D. Rane Danubian 2009
#
D. Rane Danubian has been
covering
the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with
relish
-- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never
weakly)
will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with
forays
into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local
artists as well.
#
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