Washington Ballet 'Nutcracker'

Septime Webre's choreography of The Nutcracker, made for Washington Ballet and presented each December at the Warner Theater, will always be associated with good memories. Webre reimagined the famous story as taking place in Washington, with Clara receiving the present of a nutcracker from her eccentric godfather at a Christmas party in Georgetown, seeing the dance of the snowflakes with the monuments in the background, and the Land of Springtime, cherry blossoms and all, replacing the Land of Sweets. It was the first ballet that Miss Ionarts ever saw, but when I asked her what she remembered about it earlier this fall, she recalled very little. So we decided to make our first trip back to the Warner Theater to see what this Nutcracker was like now.

As we have reported over the past few years, since our first experience of this production, the Washington Ballet has stopped performing its Nutcracker with a live orchestra -- except for a small orchestra hired last season, which turned out to be an exception. This was quite unfortunate for the company, since it happened when Alastair Macaulay came through Washington on his Nutcracker Chronicles tour and the review was damning. Washington Post critic Sarah Kaufman, after soft-pedaling the orchestra issue in the last couple years, led with it in her review on Sunday. Who knows how bad press affects ticket sales, which it should, but the crowd on Saturday night seemed not as full as it should have been.

Other Reviews: Sarah Kaufman, Lack of orchestra takes some of the magic out of Washington Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’ (Washington Post, December 2)

We have suffered through a Nutcracker without live music before, and the effect was just as disappointing here. Without a live conductor and musicians, there is no elasticity to the coalescence of music and dance, and too much of the movement just felt rushed as dancers nervously made sure that they did not get behind the unfeeling metronome blasting from the speakers. So this is not a Nutcracker for purists or for most adults who have expectations about ballet from experience. That being said, the choreography is delightful in many ways, and Miss Ionarts was so charmed that she proclaimed it her favorite Nutcracker yet. Although Webre has stacked the stage with a critical mass of cute kids -- mice in pilgrim hats! snow angels! toadstools! butt-shaking bees! polka-dot polichinelles! -- the corps scenes and the pas de deux are far from child's play.

Washington Ballet's production of The Nutcracker continues through December 23, at the Warner Theater.