As ballets go, The Nutcracker is something like a variety show at Alexander III’s House of Vaudeville: It has very little story but an endlessly diverting lineup of different kinds of dance, most notably in the second act. Which surely helps account for the ballet’s popularity in the United States, beginning in the World War II years, but then taking off after George … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 24-26
Dance: Americans have been getting into the holiday spirit with Tchaikovsky ever since the 1950s, when George Balanchine resurrected an overlooked part of a double-bill (with the one-act opera Iolanta) from 1892 about a girl’s magical Christmas in which a nutcracker battles to the death with the Mouse King and rodent horde and ends up in the arms of a prince. The story, by … [Read more...]