Annual holiday classic a dependable perennial
BalletMet’s “The Nutcracker” is one of central Ohio’s most reliable performing-arts events.
Each December, the company hauls out its straight-from-storybook sets and lavish costumes — not to mention many handfuls of faux snow — to present another edition of the classic ballet.
More important than the familiarity of the production, however, is the consistency of the performing. Elegant, emotional dancing, along with pitch-perfect playing by the Columbus Symphony, combine to make the show sturdy but seldom stodgy.
This year’s production, which opened Friday and continues through Dec. 24 at the Ohio Theatre, upholds the tradition.
On Friday night, the dancers brought energy and interest to the many character parts in Act I, which unfolds in the golden-hued residence of young Clara Stahlbaum (as all “Nutcracker” nuts surely know, the youngster given the Nutcracker doll).
William Newton and Lisset Santander were regal and inviting as Clara’s parents, while Gabriel Gaffney Smith was an appropriately enigmatic Herr Drosselmeyer. Kristie Latham contributed septuagenarian spunk to the part of Grandma Stahlbaum.
The degree of dancing difficulty increases as the ballet unfolds. As Grown-Up Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, Jessica Brown and Michael Sayre performed with charm and abandon. Both dancers seemed to thoroughly enjoy their parts, a quality that came across to the audience.
Highlights in Act II included Santander and Jarrett Reimers in the appealingly unhurried Arabian Dance; memorably paired earlier this year in Christopher Wheeldon’s “Fool’s Paradise,” these two tall dancers are a perfect match. Jim Nowakowski and Kohhei Kuwana were pure power as they spun and turned their way through the Russianbased Trepak.
Best of all were Caitlin Valentine-Ellis and Miguel Anaya
as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier. Consistently one of BalletMet’s most explosive dancers, Anaya was all cool control last night. Ellis, meanwhile, was the very picture of a graceful Sugar Plum Fairy — calm yet expressive, and with crystalline technique.
With a cuckoo clock that flaps its wings, life-size mice wielding silverware as weapons and a Christmas tree that grows on cue, the production’s pyrotechnics impressed, too. And, enthusiastically conducted by Luis Biava, the Columbus Symphony played with equal aplomb both the bombastic and lilting sections in Tchaikovsky’s score.