‘Nutcracker’ back, to children’s delight
S.F. Ballet’s Christmas show returns to sold-out matinees
When Katie Fogelsong returned from church at 9: 30 Sunday morning, her daughters, Casey, 10, and Georgia 5, were already in their Christmas dresses waiting at the door.
“Nutcracker” was back at the San Francisco Ballet, and though the matinee did not start until 2 p.m., they’d waited long enough. Two years to be exact, which is a lifetime for a child waiting to see the snow fall inside the War Memorial Opera House.
“Every year since they could sit still for the performance, we’ve been here,” Fogelsong said while her daughters sipped apple juice through straws at the “Land of Dreams” preperformance fundraising luncheon for families. “Last year we watched ‘Nutcracker’ on DVD, and it was like watching a fire log burn on TV. You could see it, but you couldn’t feel the magic.”
There was enough pent-up demand for the magic that all five performances over the weekend sold out the opera house, at 3,000 seats per show. There could have been more, but the first two rows were left empty to allow social distancing between musicians in the pit and the audience. Dancers and musicians were unmasked, but the audience was fully masked and all attendees were required to show proof of vaccination at the door, unless they are younger than 12, in
which case proof of a negative test was required.
Everyone attending the luncheon was mailed rapid coronavirus test kits, and for those who forgot, there was a test center set up in the basement.
“The important thing is to bring people back to the opera house and bring people back to the ballet,” said
Kelsey Lamond, co-chair of the annual luncheon, which sold out at 230 people — $12,000 for a table for 10. The event raises $500,000 a year to bring the San Francisco Ballet into schools across the Bay Area. The threeweek run is expected to gross just under $8 million, accounting for 30% of the company’s annual revenue. The ballet sells tickets as low as $19 for nearly half of the performances to enable broader access to “Nutcracker.”
After the show went dark last season, ticket sales have rebounded and nearly passed sales for the 2018 “Nutcracker.”
“About half of the audience for “Nutcracker” is new to the San Francisco Ballet,” said Danielle St. Germain-Gordon, interim executive director. “It’s a sumptuous show set in San Francisco, and provides an incredible introduction.”
The matinee is always kid-heavy, and a major facet of the introduction is for all the little girls and boys dressed up in velvet dresses and tuxedos to see kids their own age up on the stage.
The party scene in Act 1 normally has 13 child performers younger than 12, and some as young as 9. This sets many a young audience member to dreaming and many parents to carpooling to ballet schools.
“The San Francisco Ballet sets the bar toward making it magical for kids,” Fogelsong said.
But because of COVID-19 and vaccine protocols, this year’s show has no performers younger than 12. It was a disappointment, but not one Fogelsong’s daughter Casey couldn’t overcome as soon as the curtain went up.
“I just like to see what they are wearing and how they dance in the snow,” said Casey, a fourth-grader at La Entrada School in Menlo Park.
Rebecca Sacerdoti of San Francisco has brought her daughters Skye, 10, and Sienna, 7, to “Nutcracker’ since they were 6 and 3. Christmas last year without it was disappointing, said Sacerdoti, and her daughters did not forget. She asked them in September, “What’s the one thing you want to do this holiday season?” The girls chorused in unison, “Let’s go back to the ‘Nutcracker.’ “
So there they were, the first ones in when the luncheon started at 11:30 a.m. in Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall, a block from the opera house. Sienna was in an animal print dress with a hot pink sash and Skye, not a fan of dresses, in a new blacktuxedo and slippers.
As the luncheon ended all the kids were escorted to the opera house by Santa Claus. The ornate lobby was loud with voices and kids sliding across the marble floor in their dress shoes.
This is the last season for “Nutcracker,” under the direction of Helgi Tomasson, who created it in 2004. He is retiring after 37 years. By Dec. 30 there will have been 29 performances for the season, but none matches the youthful exuberance of a rainy Sunday matinee.
On the drive up from Atherton, Fogelsong’s daughters asked “‘Are we there yet?’ every 15 minutes,” she said. Once the curtain lifted a few minutes after 2 p.m. “they were entirely enamored.” The day’s activity meant at least eight hours in their fancy Christmas outfits and at least eight Christmas cookies and eight chocolate-dipped strawberries eaten.
“It’s very important and exciting,” Fogelsong said. “It keeps the family tradition alive.”