Few productions of “The Nutcracker” repay serious scrutiny. If you’re just a balletomane, you may return to see multiple casts; but the lover of choreography craves more. The curious thing about Mr. Ratmansky’s production, which American Ballet Theater presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for almost three weeks in December (the company gave it its premiere there in 2010), is that, although it’s presented as a vehicle for a wide range of star casts, its pas de deux in Acts I and II by no means compliment all of them. It is, however, a company show. Vividly engaging from the opening kitchen scene, gorgeously costumed, full of keenly individual characters, its most invariably telling fare comes in what it gives its children, its corps de ballet and its supporting players.valentines day flowers her
When the massed children first rush into the Stahlbaums’ party, they gesture yearningly upstage to the Christmas tree (and its presents), hopping. Then they stamp in frustration, memorably doing little jumps with bent knees that arrive with turned-out feet together (assemblés). That gesture to the tree is echoed by the Snowflakes at the end of the act, as the children escape their lures. And those stamping assemblés (with the knees tucked up) are the kernel of many steps that follow for the Snowflakes, Clara and the Nutcracker Boy, the Princess and Prince, the Nutcracker’s Sisters, the Bees and Flowers.
All this suggests that the children’s pent-up energies stoke the fantasy scenes that follow. And so the Ratmansky “Nutcracker” acquires a strong edge of “Hansel and Gretel.” The children are the motor to the energy of this “Nutcracker” and its dream. And see how the Nanny and Butler return as Sugar Plum Fairy and Majordomo: this is a child’s dream in which the domestic staff rule the heavens. (Richard Hudson’s décor proposes, rather confusingly, that the Sugar Plum land is somehow inside the children’s doll house.)
The intricacy of this construction deepens on further inspection — but several flaws still glare. Amid all the liveliness at the party (I never tire of Frau Stahlbaum’s endearingly silly sisters), irritants include the grandfather’s sneezes (always a bad shtick in ballet), the grandmother’s dodderiness, and the child who three times has the same crying fit directly at the audience.
If I understand Mr. Ratmansky’s idea correctly, this “Nutcracker” occurs in a child’s world. Nanny screens the children’s eyes from the sight of their parents kissing. The dancing dolls, like the vivid servants in the kitchen and (above all) the mice, have a heightened intensity that makes them more real and less daft than the formally polite grown-ups. So the tepidly choreographed battle of mice and soldiers is a disappointment. And though the snow scene is serious, it is the last serious moment until, late in Act II, Clara and her Nutcracker Boy recognize themselves as the Prince and Princess, as if meeting them in a magic mirror.
The rest of the Sugar Plum land in Act II — despite a real wealth of dance detail — is just a return to charming silliness. Since the 1892 premiere production of “The Nutcracker” ended with a view of bees before a hive, it’s interesting that Mr. Ratmansky — who knows an astonishing amount of dance history — has restored bees to the ballet. His four male bees fructify the 16 female flowers in the long Flower waltz. But these bees, with their foolish helmets and petty wing beats, and the giddy, vapid flowers are the ballet’s most trivial characters; and theirs is a long waltz, played here at a very moderate tempo.
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