New life for the party

Boston Ballet keeps searching for the perfect Nutcracker

by Jeffrey Gantz

THE NUTCRACKER, Based on the story Nutcracker and Mouse King, by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Choreography by Daniel Pelzig, Bruce Marks, Sydney Leonard, and Anna-Marie Holmes. Set design by Helen Pond and Herbert Senn. Costume design by David Walker. Lighting design by Mary Jo Dondlinger. With the Boston Ballet Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan McPhee. Presented by Boston Ballet, at the Wang Center, through January 3.

It's that time again -- when the ballet critics, even those who, like me, love The Nutcracker, try to think of something new to write about it. Fortunately, it's also the time when ballet companies, even those that, like Boston Ballet, have a hugely successful Nutcracker, try to come up with something new to keep audiences coming back. Boston Ballet has obliged this year by having Artistic Associate Daniel Pelzig revamp the first act, taking out some cherished bits, creating new ones, providing more dance and less mime. Audiences may miss a favorite moment now and then, but traditions have to start somewhere. In a few years, what Pelzig has created may be equally cherished.

The "new" Nutcracker actually starts up before you take your seat: two huge plastic Nutcrackers now flank the Wang Center entrance. At the first of the three preview performances I caught last weekend, there was a classy brass trio playing up on the mezzanine, and throughout the weekend characters from the first act circulated to give away Nutcracker buttons. Even the ushers have red Nutcracker sashes, to add to the festivity of the occasion. Reason enough to arrive early.

Once the curtain rises, it's different. No little girl on her sled telling Papa how much to pay for the Christmas tree, and no one-punch snowball fight (Dr. Drosselmeyer and his Nephew, you'll remember, lost). Instead, the party guests come down the aisles, and on stage Clara and Fritz wheedle their Governess into buying them hot chestnuts and get into a snowball fight of their own. There's less business and more dancing (the children do some simple steps), but I miss the old flurry of activity.

We get an even bigger surprise when that gorgeous Victorian backdrop rises: no parlor scene (where the Governess would catch Clara and Fritz peeking into the drawing room and the Maid would steal a kiss from her Delivery Boy sweetie). We go directly to the drawing room, where it's the G&G show. Grandpa, obviously entering his second childhood, grabs Fritz's new hobby horse and gallops around the room while Grandma tries to wrestle it away from him. Grandpa tries to check out the children's presents under the tree before Herr Silberhaus drags him away. Grandpa keeps trying to steal Grandma's chair, and he succeeds, with malevolent satisfaction, when she gets up to look at the large boxes the Maid and the Delivery Boy are bringing in. Grandma's wild-and crazy bit at the end of the Grossvater Tanz has been drastically reduced, but in compensation we get to hear the reprise of the dance, and she now receives her pearl necklace from Grandpa center stage. At the end of the evening, too, they retire together -- before, Grandpa departed with the other guests, which never made much sense. All this is good news for those of us who believe the amazing Tony Collins (he's played Grandma in all 34 Boston Ballet productions of The Nutcracker) can't have too much to do. But don't take your eyes off Grandpa -- whether portrayed by Robert Underwood, Gianni Di Marco, or Todd Ghanizadeh, he's a riot. Even in three performances, I'm sure I didn't catch everything this pair are up too.

Indeed, Pelzig has crammed the entire first act with goodies. The biggest change is that the children seem more grown-up (though Fritz and Clara no longer get to dance with their parents). For the Children's March and Galop, the boys actually march, with muskets and cannon and trumpet and drum; the girls intervene with their dolls, then heap them all on poor Grandma before the promenade finale. Drosselmeyer takes the Maid for a spin on the dance floor before passing her on to the Delivery Boy (who, replacing Drosselmeyer's Nephew as magician's assistant, continues his flirtation of many years with the Maid). Harlequin and Columbine have a nicer pas de deux, and the Bear enters not in a box but on all fours, like a real bear. Drosselmeyer gives Clara the Nutcracker after everyone else has gone in to dinner, and there's no spanking for Fritz after he pulls the head off, only a hard look. Fritz doesn't even get to lead the boys' charge that disrupts the girls' lament for the wounded Nutcracker -- Grandpa steals his hobby horse again. I miss the live white dove (probably more trouble than it was worth) that Drosselmeyer turned his gloves into, and the leftover port that the Maid pops after the Christmas tree blinks at her, but this is a Party Scene to chew on.

Not that the port goes unpopped -- one of the Mice drains not one glass but two. The Battle Scene has a number of minor alterations: no Baby Mouse kicking the Nutcracker, and no bye-bye wave from the dispatched Mouse King (no Mouse King Nutcracker in the boutique, either -- c'mon, guys, have we forgotten who the real star of this show is?), but the hilarious Dance of the Cygnets (from Swan Lake) parody is still with us, and there are improvements like having Clara grab a blanket from the settee and bed down next to her Nutcracker, who's now under the tree. Fritz's hussars march magnificently in their Maryinsky blue with gold trim and white plumes; and the Mice seem to have more Swiss cheese than ever. Clara acts more like a young lady (and the exquisite Marie Ceranowicz can really act): she's a little startled by her first sight of the Nutcracker, and not at all sure what to make of the actual person who replaces her beloved toy. Pelzig gets the Snow Queen and King on earlier than before, so that they have an entire pas de deux to the most erotic music Tchaikovsky ever wrote; and the Snowflake choreography must be better, because the white tulle costumes, which I've never liked, looked so good I thought they must be new. (Mistaking old costumes for new ones is an early sign that the ballet critic should be put out to pasture.)

Act two has a new (well, recently new) pas de deux for Chocolate that's snappy but not deep (I miss the heartbreaker Chocolate lady of some 10 or 12 years ago) and a completely revamped Waltz of the Flowers where Dew Drop now has four Cavaliers to go with her 12 Flowers, whom Pelzig tends to use in groups of three. There's even actual waltzing, and Dew Drop flirts with all four Cavaliers, who have their own solo in the "Winter" section. You can see what Pelzig's about to do from a mile away -- but that's how Tchaikovsky's music works too, the genius is that you still want to hear it. (And on that subject: why the tiny but harmful cut just before the end?) For some reason Clara and the Nutcracker now sit on opposite sides of the stage to watch all this (Drosselmeyer now exits); The Nutcracker joins Clara only when Sugar Plum and her Cavalier come on, after a set-change interlude (with the jarring interpolation of dance music from the Party Scene). Overall, act two is still pleasing rather than profound; there's a lot of nice dancing but very little in the way of relationships to suggest to Clara what's in store for her as an adult. Maybe that can be Daniel Pelzig's next assignment.

It's hard to assess the dancers when the production is still evolving -- along with, of course, their performances. (Case in point: Saturday afternoon Herr Silberhaus climbed up the ladder and seemed to light the tree, but we could see Drosselmeyer working some magic from the far corner of the stage; Saturday evening Drosselmeyer went up the ladder himself, leaving his host flummoxed.) But among the highlights last weekend: Marjorie Grundvig and Yuri Yanowsky as the Snow Queen and King, the Grace Kelly-like Grundvig spicing up the formal choreography (think To Catch a Thief); Kyra Strasberg in Coffee, her languid phrasing and bedroom eyes (how does she manage to look at both guys simultaneously?) putting some steam into this section's sensual but not sexy acrobatic moves; Jennifer Gelfand as Dew Drop and Sugar Plum, throwing off the usual multiple piqué turns and fouettés but also articulating superbly, and dancing for her Cavalier (a worthy Carlos Iván Santos) as well as for the audience. Pollyana Ribeiro looked a touch artificial as Sugar Plum Friday but heated up as Dew Drop and then the Snow Queen Saturday night; Tara Hench and Simon Ball seemed tentative as the Snow Queen and King on Friday but the talent is obvious; and so on -- these were, remember, pre-opening-night performances. But what sums up Boston Ballet's Nutcracker, and the company itself, didn't even happen on stage but on the mezzanine, Friday night, where the Mouse who was handing out buttons, mincing about and having his photo taken with the children, tiptoed up to the brass trio and then broke into a little dance, just for the joy of it and to please the handful of on-lookers (I don't imagine he knew they included a critic). This is what ballet should be all about. I hope he finds a big wheel of Swiss in his holiday stocking.