The New Year's Eve Nutcracker

I was feeling a little Nutcracker'ed out this Christmas (I'd seen it twice so far), but I nevertheless settled into my seat at Boston Ballet on New Year's Eve for a third go round with this seasonal favorite (largely for the sake of the partner unit, who somehow had missed the other trips).

And believe it or not, I was glad I went.  The Ballet had advertised their New Year's Eve version - the first ever - would have a few twists, and these all proved good fun.  The basic idea was to goof around a little with the holiday chestnut (Luciana Voltolini as a snowflake, at left), to make it more of a party; Santa Claus (Robert Kretz) and Drosselmeier's dancing bear (Paul Craig), for instance, kept intruding on various scenes for a quick, scenery-chewing pirouette (which actually proved quite a bit funnier than it sounds).  And in general the company members - many of whom are superb physical comedians - were quick with little pratfalls and bits of comic business; the whole thing felt delightfully fizzy (without tipping too far into parody).

Plus Clara and Fritz were played by adults - Joseph Gatti got to ham it up as the bratty Fritz, while Misa Kuranaga took over as Clara.  Kuranaga's presence allowed the Ballet to experiment with an idea I've suggested before - that The Nutcracker should climax with Clara "growing up" a bit, and participating in the famous "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" (other ballet companies have toyed with this idea for some time).  Here, Kuranaga simply took over the solo, and danced it as beautifully as she has done before.  To my mind, this is an opportunity for a more original pas de deux between Clara and her Cavalier (or perhaps even a threesome with Ms. Plum!), but it was still intriguing to see the Ballet at least dip its toe in these more sophisticated emotional waters.

The company made other, fitting gestures toward the New Year - the whole evening ended with blasts of glitter into the audience, for instance, while the orchestra played "Auld Lang Syne" (and the crowd basically went wild).  These First Nighters weren't the usual ballet audience, btw - which led to loud gasps and various sounds of awe at the level of the Ballet's dancing.  Clearly many of these folks hadn't expected the show to be quite this good. In the lobby at intermission, in fact, the operative word seemed to be "amazing" - I must have heard it half a dozen times.  Which kind of made the Ballet's achievement fresh for me, too.  I had the feeling I was witnessing the start of a new Boston tradition - which was a great way to kick off the New Year.

Reviewing The Nutcracker, Boston Ballet's annual seasonal spectacle, has become an easy gig.  Since the kinks were worked out of its transfer to the Opera House, the show has become an ever-smoother entertainment machine; by now, almost every nook and cranny has been packed with amusing effects.  And while every season the Ballet tinkers a bit with some sequence or other (this year, the opening battle with the Mouse King seemed to have been streamlined), in essence, The Nutcracker doesn't change in its essential nature - or in its steps.

Thus it has become a kind of barometer of the company's technical growth - and judging from last weekend's opening, Boston Ballet has come very far indeed in a very short time.  I think every lead role was exquisitely danced, and while the choreography, by Mikko Nissinen, is neither deep nor daring, it's often quite sophisticated, and there's a mysterious fascination in watching these familiar steps re-enacted with the supreme precision in evidence here.  Indeed, the roll call of superb performances in this version would be a long one.  James Whiteside made a fluidly gallant Cavalier, and Misa Kuranaga was just perfection as the Sugar Plum Fairy.  Meanwhile John Lam was unbelievably flexible (as ever) as the Harlequin, and Dalay Parrondo impressed with a weirdly spirited Columbine.  Pavel Gurevitch brought a romantic elegance to the long leaps (and pillowy landings) of the Snow King, and Isaac Akiba was his usual irrepressible self in the Russian dance, while Kathleen Breen Combes (above) simply stopped the show as the sinuous odalisque of the Arabian dance (I think Combes is by now firmly ensconced as the troupe's new reigning diva).

There were still more pleasures to be had in a show almost dripping with them; the serenely poised Whitney Jensen made a luminous Dew Drop Fairy, for instance, and Paulo Arrais charmed in the Chinese dance.  The Clara of opening night, Fiona Wada-Gill, was both lovely and quite accomplished technically, and as Fritz, the pint-sized Max Pounanov proved an amusingly - and accurately - pouty little brother.  If there were a few bumps here and there, I'm afraid they mostly came from the corps.  The snowflakes seemed to skitter a bit at the end of the first act, and when Jensen wasn't around, the Waltz of the Flowers became a bit of a free-for-all.  And I missed the witty theatricality of Boyko Dossev as Drosselmeier (indeed, I miss Dossev in general - he decamped for Washington Ballet), but I slowly warmed to Sabi Varga's simpler, but more sexually charged, characterization.  Meanwhile, down in the pit, the orchestra played with spirit, and maestro Jonathan McPhee always kept his foot firmly on the gas (indeed, perhaps too much so here and there - in the Chinese dance, the bassoons got a little ahead of the piccolos).

It's true that at times, as I consider the wild success of the Ballet's Nutcracker (it's widely known as the best-loved version in America), I long for something a little less glossy, a little less candified. I wish we could let the Nutcracker be a little spookier, a little more Russian.  But I can't expect the Ballet to tinker with success - certainly not a success like this one.  And I confess there are moments in The Nutcracker that still, after all these years, give me a child-like thrill - I always fall for that moment when the giant Christmas tree begins to grow, its candles glittering, or when the Land of Sweets first appears, its cloud spilling out from the stage and down into the orchestra.  I'm happy to see it every year, particularly when, year after year, the dancing just keeps getting better and better.