The Nutcracker is a famous ballet written by Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker takes place on Christmas eve. The first part of the ballet shows the Von Stahlbaums’ annual Christmas party, in which the young girl, Clara, receives an enchanted nutcracker doll from her godfather, Dr. Drosselmeyer. Fritz, Clara’s brother, accidently breaks the doll. Dr. Drosselmeyer magically repairs the nutcracker. After the party is over, Clara falls asleep and dreams about a magical world. The magical world is portrayed by many characters from the mice and the Queen Mouse to the Sugar Plum Fairy, the Snow Queen and even a prince. During the dream, many dances take place including many styles and both solo and ensemble parts. The ballet ends with Clara waking up in her house with the doll in her arms.
Last weekend, I saw The Nutmeg Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker at the Bushnell. I enjoyed the show and I thought the dancers were very talented, but I do have some negative comments. My first comment is about the costumes. The costumes during the dream were beautiful. However, Clara did not stand out as different. When reading My Love, My Love, the class has spent time looking at costumes. We, as a class, have all agreed that the characters need to stand out in various ways to show the audience the social class and connection to the other characters. I felt the costumes failed to make Clara stand out from the other characters. Many of the characters, including the Sugar Plum Fairy, the Snow Queen and Dr. Drosselmeyer, were all easily distinguishable from the other dancers. In the beginning during the Christmas party, Clara appeared in a nightgown like all of the other young girls. Each girl had the same style gown in different colors. Clara could have worn a different style nightgown or worn a more distinguishable color. This would have made her more noticeable as a main character. This continued throughout the dream as well. Clara wore a simple light pink dress. The magical creatures and fairies all had bright, sparkly costumes that were easily seen by the audience. I was disappointed because while the costume was the same color as the nightgown, which proves there was an effort to show Clara in the dream and Clara sleeping as the same character, the costume did not stand out. Clara was not easily distinguishable throughout the show, which made her nearly invisible to the audience in the magical scenes. If I chose the costumes, I would make Clara easily stand out to the audience.
Another disappointing aspect of the show was the lack of a live orchestra. The music is beautiful and it would have made the show very impressive if there was a live orchestra. While the sound was not bad, an audience member could tell it came from the speakers. A live orchestra is always better, especially in a ballet where there is no dialogue. The music makes half the ballet and the other half is the dancing. The dancing was great, but the music was only mediocre. It is easy to play the music through a speaker, it takes more talent to play the music live. Therefore, the music during The Nutmeg Ballet’s production was not impressive.
Overall, these two negative comments did not destroy the whole show. The show was still very enjoyable. These are just aspects that could be improved to make the show even better. I chose to write about only negative things because in this particular show, they stood out. My final thought is that I enjoyed the show. The cast was obviously very talented, but I did see some possible improvements to make the show more than just fantastic dancing.
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