Thankfully, there are still a few holiday traditions worth celebrating. One of them is UNC School of the Arts' production of "The Nutcracker."
The show, which opened Saturday at the Stevens Center, enchants and enthralls at nearly every turn. It sticks with often-amusing choreography developed by Ethan Stiefel, UNCSA's former dance dean, along with instructors Nigel Burley, Warren Conover and Susan McCullough. The pit musicians play Tchaikovsky's great score glowingly under the direction of Charles Barker, a guest artist who is also the principal conductor at American Ballet Theatre.
The results sweep us up in the spell that Herr Drosselmeyer casts on Clara and Sasha, a spell that will send them on what program notes call "a fantastical and wondrous journey" through the forest of Snowflakes to the Sugar Plum Fairy's kingdom. And, yes, that Mouse King and his mice — wiggling their behinds and swinging their dangling, oversized tails — still work their charms on the youngest patrons.
The Christmas party at the Silverhaus home remains a blast, giving us everything from magic for the children to majestic-looking dances for young and old alike. And don't forget about what happens to that Christmas tree; no other spectacle in the theater mesmerizes as compellingly.
But it is in Act II that the production really hits its stride, with each divertissement number having a lot to recommend it. The Russians, though "tipsy" from vodka, get the audience clapping with their athleticism, and the Chinese make their segment shine with clockwork efficiency. Mother Ginger (Edwin Martinat) prompts more than a few chuckles with vanities that almost upstage the dancing of the Ginger Snaps.
Patrons of this year's "Nutcracker" have but one more chance, namely this afternoon's performance, to see two remarkable guest artists perform the famed pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. They are Julie Kent, a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, and Gonzalo Garcia, a principal dancer at New York City Ballet. (Kent replaced Ana Sophia Scheller, who withdrew because of a family illness.)
Kent and Garcia offer a wholly virtuoso performance that combines the most natural and delicate of movements with mind-boggling speed, precision and power. They inspire the kids around them to reach for ballet's stars.
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