How did a Russian ballet become an American holiday tradition?
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BY JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star
Anticipation fills the air inside the Orpheum Theatre for Omaha Theater Ballet's latest production. A giant black clapboard, with the words "The Nutcracker" painted in white, hangs above the stage. In the audience are people of all ages — grandparents, parents and children.
Lots of children. Many of them are dressed in their Sunday best — little girls with bows or ribbons in their hair; boys in tiny slacks and sweaters.
Finally, the house lights dim. The familiar strains of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's famous score echo throughout the room.
A holiday tradition begins.
Similar scenes play out across the nation this time of year, including this weekend inside the Lied Center for Performing Arts, where the Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company is mounting its 21st "Nutcracker" — complete with its own Clara, a Mouse King and a Sugar Plum Fairy.
"I think 'The Nutcracker' has captured America's imagination," said Brad Sher, Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company board president and performer. He and his daughters, Hannah and Jessi, appear together in the first act’s party scene.
"It brings out the wonder of Christmas."
Yes, it does. But why?
How did a Russian ballet become an American holiday tradition and, more importantly, the means for ballet companies to stay afloat and/or stage other productions for their patrons?
In 2004, for example, there were 57 ballet companies in the U.S. with budgets larger than $1 million. Of them, 48 mounted "Nutcrackers," with two of them combining on a production, according to John Munger, Dance/USA director of research and information.
Not bad for a ballet that bombed in its own country.
"The Nutcracker" was first presented at the Mayinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Dec. 17, 1892.
Choreographer Marius Petipa commissioned Russian composer Tchaikovsky to compose a score based on Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman's tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King." The composer and choreographer had collaborated earlier on "Sleeping Beauty." When Petipa fell ill, his assistant Lev Ivonov finished the ballet's choreography.
Audiences and critics hated the work, which shared the bill that night with the one-act opera "Iolanthe." Afterward, Tchaikovsky even admitted it was a failure.
"The opera was evidently very well liked, the ballet not …," he wrote. "The papers, as always, reviled me cruelly."
American audiences were more receptive.
The San Francisco Ballet Company was the first to perform it in the U.S. The 1944 production, directed by William Christensen, resulted from the memories of George Ballenge, a company teacher who recalled a dance he performed in Russia as a child.
But it was the renowned choreographer George Balanchine who ultimately was credited for igniting "The Nutcracker" tradition. Balanchine, who also danced it as a child, choreographed a version of it for the New York City Ballet in 1954.
Two years later, Balanchine's "Nutcracker" wowed a national audience when it was shown in its entirety on TV on CBS' "Seven Lively Arts" program.
And a phenomenon was born.
Jennifer Fisher, a dance history and theory professor at the University of California, Irvine, listed in her 2003 New York Times guest editorial a number of reasons the ballet never took off in its homeland:
"For the imperial world, as well as for the Soviets who followed, there were too many children in leading roles, the party scene wasn't sophisticated enough and the ballet's abrupt shift into fantasy just didn't make sense," she wrote.
It didn't catch on in Europe, she added, because critics considered "The Nutcracker" the "poor cousin among classical ballets."
But Americans loved the family feeling of the party scene, Fisher said, and appreciated the gifts of evolving child dancers.
"The New World was all about progress — and what better sign of progress for American parents to see than the children they've been sending to ballet class up on the stage?" she wrote.
Dance/USA's Munger has his own thoughts about why “The Nutcracker” has succeeded in the U.S., among them the ballet's holiday story and Tchaikovsky’s memorable score.
In addition, he said, no other 19th century ballet has a natural hierarchy of skill levels and ages, from the grandfatherly Drosselmeier to the beautiful and agile Sugar Plum Fairy to children in mouse costumes.
"It's a natural," he said. "Mice are small, and you need small people to be mice."
For Robin Welch, "The Nutcracker's" appeal is the dancing.
The Omaha Theater Ballet founder and artistic director has performed or choreographed different versions of it for 40 years. She co-choreographed her first "Nutcracker" in 1976 for the Connecticut Ballet Company in New Haven and danced the roles of Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy.
She also performed both roles on the West Coast when she was 17.
"It was great fun and because I was dancing two different roles, I had to develop qualities and styles that made the two characters different. I tried to make the Snow Queen sharp in movement and somewhat cold and aloof, while the Sugar Plum was warm, soft and almost Mother Earthish."
In 1993, she co-choreographed a new "Nutcracker" for Ballet Omaha, setting it in the 1920s. It's the production she uses today for Omaha Theater Ballet, which came on the scene in 1999 after Ballet Omaha folded.
In addition to “The Nutcracker’s” regular characters, Welch’s version includes appearances by Betty Boop, Teddy Bear and the Marx Brothers.
Like Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” “The Nutcracker” is a part of the public domain, meaning directors, choreographers, playwrights and such can make changes to the work.
That’s another reason, some say, the “The Nutcracker” has endured. Like a snowflake, each production has its own identity, its own characteristics.
It’s also why dancers don’t mind revisiting the piece year after year after year, Welch said.
"Dancers use 'The Nutcracker' as a yardstick," she said. "After awhile there is no place to move up, but it's no less challenging. A group of steps you may have had trouble with last year may come easier this year because your technique has changed or grown."
Welch’s Omaha Theater Ballet is a professional company in residence at The Rose, a performing arts center for children and families. The company is supported by more than 100 ballet students and community performers.
As is the case with many ballet companies, “The Nutcracker” serves as Omaha Theater Ballet’s primary fund-raiser.
Welch declined to reveal how much it cost to produce the work, which features four performances over four days, or how much the company draws in corporate and individual donations. She did say ticket sales generate $220,000.
Omaha Theater Ballet will produce two more pieces this spring: “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Confetti,” the company’s critically acclaimed showcase.
“(‘The Nutcracker’) pays the bills all the time,” Welch said.
But nowhere is "The Nutcracker's" enduring appeal more apparent than in Lincoln, where Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company founder and artistic director Shari Shell-True has seen her production grow from 22 dancers and a $1,200 budget to 225 performers and a budget of $135,000.
True had danced the ballet at the Lincoln Community Playhouse, which decided to forgo the ballet for another holiday production.
"I thought that we had to have a 'Nutcracker,'" she said.
Unlike the Omaha Theater Ballet, the Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company is not a professional company, but it brings in professional dancers to perform the more difficult roles in “The Nutcracker.” Lincoln also uses a professional orchestra instead of the canned music heard in Omaha.
Also unlike Omaha, “The Nutcracker” is not a fund-raiser here. The Lincoln board struggles each year to pay the bills for three performances at the Lied Center and often finishes in the red.
“It’s getting harder and harder every year,” said board president Sher, who noted “The Nutcracker” probably wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for the generosity of corporate donors.
Lincoln’s biggest expense is the orchestra, which costs the company between $30,000 and $35,000. Sher said there never has been talk, nor does he anticipate any, about ditching the orchestra. Live music is one of the things that sets Lincoln’s “Nutcracker” apart from others, he said.
“We’ve committed to live music,” he said. “It makes it a lot more fun, a lot more richer.”
Lincoln’s (and Omaha’s) biggest concern is declining attendance. Lincoln, for example, saw a 6.8 percent decrease in patrons between 2003 and 2004.
At the same time, attendance dipped 2.5 percent among 39 major “Nutcrackers” produced by companies with budgets of $1 million or more, according to Munger of Dance/USA.
The Lincoln company attributes its decline to new competition. For three years now, the Moscow Ballet has brought a touring production of “The Great Russian Nutcracker” to the city.
“There’s nothing wrong with providing an alternative, but it’s 400 or 500 people that may not be going to the one we do,” Sher said. “It’s that kind of stuff we have to deal with.”
Welch agreed. Moscow Ballet’s push into Omaha angered her and her company, she said. In the end, she believes in her production and the reputation it’s built over the years.
“People are either going to go to the Orpheum ‘Nutcracker’ or they are not,” she said. “We believe in ours and believe our audiences are excited by it.”
At least they were on a recent Sunday afternoon.
Children throughout the theater moved to the edge of their seats when the Nutcracker took on the Mouse King in a sword fight. Many of the kids even talked to the characters on the stage.
“People want to find things to do together as a family,” Welch said. “(‘The Nutcracker’) is an event in a way.”
An event and a tradition.
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
‘The Nutcracker’
* Live
What: Lincoln Midwest Ballet Company
When: 2 p.m. Dec. 18
Where: Lied Center for Performing Arts, 301 N. 12th St.
Tickets: $39, $36 and $30; student tickets are $27, $22 and $20; 472-4747
* Televised
What: Ballet Internationale
When: 1 p.m. Dec. 18
Where: NET Television (Time Warner Cable channel 12)
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