A FRESH
'NUTCRACKER,' MINUTES BEFORE THE MOTHBALLS
Are Last Nights As Lustrous as First
Nights?
By Paul Hertelendy
artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
and dance
Week of Dec. 28-Jan. 5, 2009
Vol. 12, No. 50
I have seen
the San Francisco
Ballet’s “Nutcracker” some 75 times since 1964, and I never tire of it.
Numerous productions have come down the pike, from the Christensens’
historic
ones to Helgi Tomasson’s 2004 production today. It reigns now as one of
the
pinnacles of the trade, among the most lavish anywhere, bulging with
sparkle
and opulence, with an orchestra as polished as the dancers on the Opera
House stage.
Admittedly,
the magic in the party scene is muted, the evil Mouse King’s fight to
the death
a mite dull, the Sugar-Plum Fairy’s solo
routine stuff, and the lack of a dragon in the Chinese variation
incomprehensible. But the show, now set among the swell gentry of
pre-quake San Francisco,
is fresh,
leading off with Drosselmeyer the toy maker transformed from a spooky
eccentric
to a benevolent, beloved entrepreneur who makes it all work with dash
and grace.
Now Clara’s dreams have her sofa scooting about the stage, the
Snowflakes scene
has Jean-Cocteau-like prancing white horses pulling Clara’s coach, and
the snowfalls
rival anything seen this side of Tioga Pass.
And the landing of
the three male Russian virtuosos, keyed to the music, is the most
astonishing
thing I’ve seen since the Kastschei in “Firebird” years ago.
There’s
an
old saw that shows like this are crackling at the opening (critics’
night) and
go downhill from there. But when it came to the final performance Dec.
27 three
weeks after the opener, the audience was smaller. Yet I saw the corps
de ballet
at their sharpest, and the company star Yuan Yuan Tan doing the Queen
of the
Snow---hardly shabby!
As
casts
change nightly, later performances allow seeing new faces. This time
the only
new face was Cory Stearns, a highly appealing guest artist on loan from
American Ballet Theatre. Playing the Nutcracker Prince, Stearns, a
good-looking
youngish chap, delivered on several fronts, stylish with a capital S.
Starting
as the prince and ending as the Grand Pas de Deux male lead, he leapt
to the
skies, he made soaring barrel turns, he partnered a less secure lady,
and, in
his narrative of act-one action, he provided some of the best mime
you’ll
encounter.
His
French
partner whom we have barely seen since her joining the troupe in 2008,
Sofiane
Sylve, was taut, lacking both exuberance and coquettishness, and tiring
noticeably in the celesta solo. Far more successful was the agile
ballerina Tan
leading the Snow scene, with the Spanish-flash partner Rubén
Martín Cintas,
another principal used sparingly since his 2006 debut here.
The
high point
so often is
the Waltz of the Flowers---a regal, elegant flow of the corps de
ballet. It had
however been even better in the previous production, when a woman named
Rose went
the whole diagonal of the stage between the “flowers” in rapid,
whipping turns---a
show-stopper now deleted.
Of
course,
there are numerous shifts and changes. Now there is a Nutcracker
Prince, but
not a young predecessor; the Sugar Plum Fairy (Frances Chung) does solos, but not the Grand Pas; and the
Mirletons now are very San Franciscan dance-hall show-girls with lots
of legs.
Happily,
the
popular show itself has a lot of legs, too---of the other kind.
By
now, in
every mounting version of this classic we are accustomed to wrenching
musical
transitions of the Tchaikovsky music where cuts or interpolations are
made.
Here, though, Martin West’s orchestra did just one, leading into the
Grand Pas
de Deux.
LINGERING
IMPRESSIONS, NEW FACES---On exiting, I couldn’t forget the demise of
the Mouse
King as he falls into the orchestra pit head first, vanishing as his
upended feet
do a perfect Entrechat Six to the crowd’s delight…One figure to watch
when the
repertory season starts in late January, 2010 is the newest SFB
principal,
Vitor Luiz from Brazil, just imported this year.
San Francisco
Ballet at the Opera House. “Nutcracker” through
Dec. 27; repertory season starts Jan. 23, 2010 (with
gala Jan. 20). For info: (415) 865-2000, or go online.
©Paul Hertelendy 2009
#
Paul Hertelendy 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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