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The Nutcracker by Joffrey Ballet an annual dose of magic

The Nutcracker by Joffrey Ballet an annual dose of magic

 


A sure sign that we are on the other side of the pandemic: the Snow Babies are back!

The Joffrey Ballets Nutcracker made some pandemic tweaks last year, including ditching its unofficially invented smaller ballerinas the Snow Babies. Restoring seemingly small concessions seems like a big deal for ballet companies, which simply can’t survive without the box office run of their Nutcrackers.

As a large crowd made its way to the Lyric Opera on Saturday afternoon for this opening day of The Nutcracker, there was a wave of normality and a great sigh of relief. For many, a year ago attending a ballet might seem risky. Finally, once again, pure joy filled the air.

The Nutcracker by Joffrey Ballets runs until the end of December at the Lyric Opera House.

Robert Joffrey launched his Nutcracker in 1987. Joffrey moved the action from a stuffy German living room owned by the Stahlbaum family (from the ETA Hoffmann story that inspired this enduring phenomenon), placing it in a sumptuous living room on this side of the pond. An American Nutcracker.

Having pulled that production nearly 30 years later, the company that bears the Joffreys name now performs choreographer Christopher Wheeldons Nutcracker, which again moves that show to a one-room slum on the edge of Jackson Park the winter before the Great Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Marie (Yumi Kanazawa), her brother Franz (Elliot King) and their single mother (Jeraldine Mendoza), a sculptor who makes the golden Republic statue that was the fair’s emblem, throw a modest Christmas party with families immigrants from this blue-collar pop-district. A Chicago Nutcracker.

The rest of the ballet is pretty much the same as the other regular Nutcrackers, that is, if you skip a visit from Buffalo Bill instead of the conventional Russian Trepak. The second act Land of the Sweets is reimagined here as the Midway Exhibitions, highlighting different cultures from around the world.

Jeraldin Mendoza and Dylan Gutierrez in

Another revision: the role of Herr Drosselmeyer is shared between two men. There is a creepy Rat Catcher (Edson Barbosa) who later appears in Mary’s dream as the Rat King, towering above an army of battling rodents under the branches of Christmas trees. A Daniel Burnham guy called the Grand Impresario (Dylan Gutierrez) is also part Drosselmeyer, shown here as a generous and endearing employer who brings his lovable assistant Peter (Hyuma Kiyosawa) to the party and hands out DIY gifts (plus a doll nutcracker for Marie).

Known as the transformation scene, the Gutierrez and Kanazawas duo is perhaps that Nutcracker’s best and most magical moment despite the snow babies. After the party, Marie falls asleep. As Tchaikovsky’s glorious score swells, she wakes up to find their seedy Christmas tree growing impossibly tall and lush. The Impresario casts a memorization spell on Marie, and her dream turns into a battle between life-size mice and toy soldiers. Battle won, Kiyosawa, now transformed into a prince, takes Marie to a snowy glade en route to a land of enchantment.

The Nutcracker is part magic, part showpiece, a vehicle to celebrate Joffrey’s excellent dancers. And for the first time since the debut of this ballet in 2016, I had a real idea of ​​their comfort. The dancers are finally having fun, especially in the party and battle scenes, which are full of delightful nuance and heartwarming fantasy. You can also see the merriment begin to infect this tricky Nutcracker snow and funfair scenes, the latter replacing the traditional Flower Waltz.

As for protagonists Kanazawa, Kiyosawa, Mendoza, and Gutierrez, who danced the same roles on opening day last year and are just as brilliant this time around, it’s a worthwhile exercise to also pay attention. to people further down the cast list. (And note that the cast changes throughout the performance.)

The cast of the Joffrey Ballet's annual performance of

Fernando Duarte and Xavier Nunez, for example, play effervescent, mischievous teenagers whose party scene duo foreshadows Buffalo Bill in the second act. Bill is danced by Valentino Moneglia Zamora, who, it turns out, is a decent rope-handler and brings an adequate degree of yee-haw to the second act.

King is an adorably rambunctious Franz, who is hilariously captured and held hostage by a clumsy mouse squad at the battle scene. Another highlight of the children’s cast: cheeky nuts who wink and nod at us as they crack open their shells in the Mother Ginger dance. Wictor Hugo Pedroso is a twirling top in the Chinese variation, and of course there’s the stunning Victoria Jaiani as an Arab dancer. His unparalleled stoicism, sensuality and near total lack of articulation are bolstered this year by a capable new partner in Barbosa, following the retirement of Temur Suluashvili last season.

Indeed, after five tries in six years (the 2020 performances were canceled due to the pandemic), the Joffrey Ballet now truly owns its Nutcracker. I’ve objected to Wheeldon’s choreography before, and because he owns the copyright, there’s little to no agency for Joffreys dancers and directors to make intuitive choices for the good of this ballet. It remains clunky and awkward at times, through no fault of their own.

Fortunately, The Nutcracker is much more than a series of stages, and this one is particularly enchanting. It’s not hard to see why people sign up for two hours of whimsical cheering. It’s about the dance, of course. They are also children dressed in their holiday best, seeing ballet for the first time and falling in love with an extraordinary art form for life. I watched child after child venture down the aisles to peer curiously into the orchestra pit and pose for pictures. A particularly shrewd tiny balletomane in a shimmering pink dress and pearls had relatively huge opera glasses hanging from her neck. That’s what The Nutcracker is about.

Lauren Warnecke is a freelance critic.

Review: Nutcracker (3.5 stars)

When: until December 27

Where: Joffrey Ballet at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive

Operating time: 2 hours

Tickets: $36 to $203 at 312-386-8905 and www.joffrey.org

Sources

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2/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/reviews/ct-ent-nutcracker-joffrey-review-20221204-s75tx5sqnncbxjwi6m5gheuzgy-story.html

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