The Nutcracker Reviewed by Younger Son

The Nutcracker

I saw this ballet at the Rialto Square Theatre on November 26, 2006.

Setting: The living room of the Silberhaus home in 19th century German on Christmas Eve.

When curtain rises, the 2 children Clara and Fritz were anxiously waiting for the guest to arrive. Soon the guests were starting to arrive. After all the children and the adults were finished dancing with each other a magician comes who’s name is Drosselmeyer and shows the kids two mechanical dolls. Then he gives a toy to each of the children and gives a special wooden nutcracker to Clara. Clara’s brother is jealous so he tries to take it from his sister, but when they were fighting the nutcracker broke. Clara was really sad so Drosselmeyer fixed it for her. After all the guest had left Clara snuck away so she could comfort her nutcracker and she fell asleep.

While Clara was sleeping a swarm of mice came to take all the presents under the Christmas tree. Drosselmeyer came when Clara woke up and saw what was happening so he did some magic to make the tree grow bigger and make the nutcracker come to life. There was a battle between mice and soldiers, when the mouse king showed up. Now there was a battle between him and the nutcracker. The nutcracker was almost finished when Clara jumped on the mouse king’s back, then the nutcracker killed the mouse king. While the mice were all scrambling out of the house the nutcracker invited Clara to a magical place called the kingdom of snow on his sleigh. They met the snow king and queen and they danced.

The start of Act 2 the snow queen and king were dancing. Soon angels and sugarplums joined them. They put the nutcracker and Clara in a seat and all the guest were there to dance for them. The first ones to dance were the flowers, then they had the pages do a dance. They had different countries do dances: Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Italian, and Russians. Then they had some other guest too: Reed Flutes, Cavalier, the Sugar Plum Fairy, The waltz of the Flowers, the Demi Soloists, Corps, and Corps. Then everyone did a finale. When Clara finally woke up she realized it was just a dream.

*** I give this ballet 3 out of 5 stars. I did not like this ballet as much as any of the plays I have seen because I am just not into ballets. My favorite characters are the people in the Russian dance group. I would like to be part of the Russian group if I was performing this ballet. I think anybody who likes ballets should go see this play.