The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker

Bass Concert Hall, through Dec. 23

Running Time: 2 hr, 10 min

On Christmas Eve, families gather and greet in the majestic living room of the Silberhaus mansion. Presents are distributed to the children in a formal, regal ceremony. A mysterious guest arrives with unique gifts – two life-size dancing dolls and a special wooden nutcracker dressed in red like a solider – for the Silberhaus daughter, Clara. The families depart, and the children are sent to bed, but Clara returns for her nutcracker to find the room transforming into a fantasy world filled with mice and rats, soldiers, a Snow King and Queen, many fairies, and Clara's nutcracker come to handsome life.

I could have told you this story only in the vaguest detail before I had seen Ballet Austin's 44th annual production of this Tchaikovsky ballet, because this was the first time I have seen any production of it. Of course, I've heard some of its music, as it is practically impossible to live in the western world today and not have heard the lovely, light, and lilting music that fills Tchaikovsky's world of fantasy. But I went with only the vaguest notion of what it was about, and I left delighted beyond measure.

This particular experience also marks my first time attending a ballet, and while it is one thing to understand that ballet is a traditional dance form that does not involve spoken words, it is another to experience an entire performance of a story told without words and understand who everyone is and exactly what is going on, as I did here. In order for that to occur, a tremendous number of disparate elements must come together seamlessly, and they do, thanks to choreographer Stephen Mills and to Richard Rosenberg, who conducts the Austin Symphony Orchestra in its lovely rendition of Tchaikovsky's music.

Everything about this production breathes artistry. Set in the late 19th century, the time the opera was composed, the style is very traditional. Scenic designer Richard Isackes uses the drop-and-fly system in Bass Concert Hall to create huge Christmas trees, journeys through the countryside, and towering castles. Tommy Bourgeois' costume design is so lush and rich that it looks like nothing so much as the finest storybook come to breathtaking life. Given the sumptuous visual feast, it is somewhat surprising that the most lovely moments occur at the end of the first act, when the stage is drenched in white as the Snow King and Queen and their snowflakes dance in the falling snow for Clara. In almost every possible way, the amazingly athletic, finely skilled dancers embody Tchaikovsky's fantasy, most especially Ashley Lynn as the Snow Queen and Aara Krumpe as the Sugar Plum Fairy, who each dance a lovely pas de deux, and Allisyn Paino and Reginald Harris, who perform a luscious and sultry Arabian dance at the court of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

For decades now, The Nutcracker has been a Christmas holiday tradition, and now I know why. Its story is every child's wish for Christmas come to vivid life – a world of ideal beauty and perfection that can be truly seen only when looking through the eyes of the very young.