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Reviews The Brown-Forman Nutcracker Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Reviewed by Victoria Lee Entire contents are copyright © 2009 Victoria Lee. All rights reserved. The Louisville Ballet's new Nutcracker delivers true magic. This production is a magnificent synergy of traditional charms and state-of-the-art stage-craft. It offers content to a wider audience than ever before, yet showcases beautifully the brilliance of our world-class ballet company and orchestra. Even if you have seen The Nutcracker dozens of times, this rendition really must be seen, heard, and experienced to be believed. The story initiates in the enchanted workshop of Herr Drosselmeier (Joseph Nygren Cox). It is a place where inventions spring to even more life than that with which their maker has imbued them. In the midst of these animated creations stand the parts of a disassembled toy-soldier-nutcracker: a gift in-the-making for Herr Drosselmeier's Godchild, Marie Stahlbaum (Kathleen Dwyer). As soon as the nutcracker is completed, it is boxed up and taken to a holiday party at the home of Marie's family. As her attraction to this fanciful-but-functional toy was piqued in the workshop earlier, Marie is elated with her gift, as well as several times frightened by the threat of its imperilment. With a little help from her family and friends, Marie successfully navigates the challenges of her wicked little brother, Fritz (Connor Holloway), and kleptomaniacal Rats. The nutcracker is returned to her safekeeping, and Marie falls asleep by the hearth with it in her arms. Mystical somnolence leads to a phenomenal dream of nested divertissements danced by party treats, favors, and toys. Marie's hero's journey imparts wisdom about life, ideal love, grace, and courage, with the thread of Herr Drosselmeier's wizardry and protection woven through to the end. Within Marie's dream, in which the Nutcracker Prince (Pete Lay) is her constant guide, are The Nutcracker's most famous ballet and music components, here rendered a-fresh. Each of Tchaikovsky's works was performed with a sublime brightness which complements perfectly all the spectacular rest. "The Waltz of the Flowers,", principaled with resplendent grace by Rose (Helen Daigle), is particularly breath-taking, with the sensation of all elements of this ballet coming together in a zyzygy of organic luminescence--the dancers, choreography, costumes, set-work seem to fuse here in a true vision of Nature herself. It may even be evocative of the dance in which honeybees see flowers. Christy Corbitt Miller and Robert Dunbar give splendid performances both in the grand pas de deux of Sugar Plum Fairy and Her Cavalier and their at-the-party, foreshadowing characters, the Sugar Plum Doll and Cavalier Doll. There was none who did not seem to defy gravity at one point or another. Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker music, the story, and the ballet have become a treasured part of American culture, ever since the San Francisco Ballet Company renaissanced them together in 1944. It is only here and now, however, that we have technology for the astounding feats of stage-craft with which this production is fraught. The incorporation of thematic prestidigitation (Magic and Illusionist Design by Marshall Magoon) gave great illumination to the importance of Herr Drosselmeier's character: he is, thereby, more fully fleshed-out as Marie's Godfather, therefore a protector in life, but also the maker of the nutcracker/Nutcracker Prince, her Guide in dream-space and a doppelganger of Herr Drosselmeier himself. These illusions are incredible enough to be a show by themselves, but all the more remarkable for communicating a deeper impression of the story. Val Caniparoli's choreography is nothing short of exquisite, giving the audience not only the best splendors of a grand ballet, but an approachable humanity as well. Several of these numbers have been commented on above, but Chinese Tea (Nobuyoshi Okada) and his Dragons, Russian Caviar, and French Pastilles provide more memorable fare, just as deliciously as they sound. To which it also must be added (really) great Rats! They were quicker and more stealthy than one would think small humans in costumes could be--with more emphasis on their thieving ways than the Rat King's battle. Much more germane to the plot that way. Tips of the hat also to Maiqui Manosa (Assistant to the Choreographer) and Willam Christensen (Russian Variation Choreography). The scenic and costume design by Peter Cazalet and lighting design by Michael T. Ford had many audience members agape with wonder–and delighted with recognition of a few uniquely Louisvillian touches, like Madame Derby (and her carousel-skirt cargo of tiny, be-silked Jockeys) and House Stahlbaum's location at the corner of "Brown and Forman Streets." With interior-lighted scrims, the audience is cleverly whisked up the stairs into the Stahlbaum house, but, soon after, the how-did-they-do-that? amazements follow. The miraculously-growing, radiant yuletide tree, sparkling winter garden, and great, flared pillars reminiscent of a Mauve Decade temple draw the viewer wholly into the scene. It even 'snows' in Whitney Hall at the end of Act I.
Sunday's Matinee, Act I, featured performances by:
Act II
Katherine Acherman, Summer Allen, Annika Beck, England Blye, Anika Chand, Marcalley Defler, Emman Delaney Addison Mathers, Isabella Tacogue, Faith Thibaudeau, Annabel Webster, and Aubrey Youngman (Angels), Christy Corbitt Miller (Sugar Plum Fairy), Robert Dunbar (Her Cavalier), Rachel Cahayla-Wynne, Ashley Thursby, Benjamin Needham-Wood, and Edward Urwin (Spanish Chocolate), Emily Reinking O'Dell and Eduard Forehand with Kirsten Allman and Allison Healy (Arabian Coffee), Nobuyoshi Okada (Chinese Tea), Brian Grant, Benjamin Needham-Wood, Jarrin Overholt, and Edward Urwin (Guard Dogs), Leigh Anne Albrechta, Erica De La O, Amanda Diehl, and Yuki Komazaki (French Pastilles), Morgan Hulen, Douglas Ruiz, and Kristopher Wojtera (Russian Caviar), Madame Derby (Jason Wang), Kathleen Blim, Hannah Botts, Caitlin Mae Espinueva, Hannah Nelms, Emma Pyne, Lilly Payne, Ellie Prince, and Olivia Vittitow (Her Guests), Helen Daigle (The Rose), and Leigh Anne Albrechta, Kirsten Allman, Elizabeth Ashbaugh, Juanita Araque, Shannon Hokanson, Claire Laine, Jennifer LaWall, Monica Munoz, Emily Scott, Ashley Thursby, Emily Woods, and Anna Young (Flowers).
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