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Recent Review

Wide-angle view for Metropolitan Classical Ballet's 'Nutcracker'

Posted on Sat., Dec. 09, 2006

By Margaret Putnam
Special Contributor to the Dallas Morning News

ARLINGTON – Most Nutcrackers look larger than life. Metropolitan Classical Ballet's version looks smaller, as though viewed from the wrong side of a telescope. The miniature effect creates an atmosphere more fanciful, more dreamy, more unreal.

The story of a girl's dream of a battle of mice and nutcracker, of bonbons and delightful characters from other lands, of snow that falls and falls, is woven into one elaborate thread, with windup dolls the thread.

Usually the party is a time of merriment, and placed in the real world. But here, even the adults look like something spun from sugar, and the unreality shows up early. As the Fairy Doll and the Nutcracker Prince – who will appear in the fairy-tale second act – skitter into each other's arms, the Mouse King pounces. The prince is no match, and in a trice the Mouse King is dragging him by one foot to a curtain, flames shooting out, and the children stare in amazement.

Olga Pavlova and Yevgeni Anfinogenov
Photo by Edward Casati

When Clara (16-year-old Emily Maciejewski) is given a nutcracker, it magically turns into a life-size doll, wearing a delightful Napoleon hat and with exaggerated red lips. Clara dances with the nutcracker doll (15-year-old Ema Watanabe), who is all stiff legs and bent arms, until Fritz intervenes. He's not jealous, only wants his turn too. But somehow, his spin leads to disaster, and the nutcracker falls in a heap, limbs broken.

The battle scene begins on an ominous, nightmarish mood, as Drosselmeyer (Andrey Prikhodko) whirls around the now-deserted ballroom, long cape flapping and the lighting throwing huge shadows everywhere. He awakens Clara, and into the gloom appear windup dolls from Spain, France, China, India and Russia. The small nutcracker fights valiantly against the much larger and foreboding Mouse King, as the other dolls cower in fright. They bend over weeping, fearing the worst.

The nutcracker, of course, is transformed into the Nutcracker Prince (Yevgeni Anfinogenov), who greets Clara with gracious formality, and escorts her to the "Dance of the Snowflakes" and the Enchanted Kingdom.

In the kingdom, dolls are scattered everywhere, but bent and still. Clara awakens them with a magic wand, and with each wave, colored lights flash on the enormous glass ball that will serve as her throne. At the end, out steps the Fairy Doll, but before Clara can be rewarded with their vibrant dancing, the battle scene is reenacted. Again, the dolls cower and weep, but order is soon restored.

Everything from the ensemble works and the variations is performed with wonderful clarity and, most remarkable, with absolutely silent feet. And as the Fairy Doll, Olga Pavlova is sublime.

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