Back in 1944, three ballet greats put their heads together one night and revived, over the course of the evening, the ghost of an 1892 full-length Russian ballet called Shchelkunchik (or Nutcracker). Willem Christensen, artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, had obtained a copy of Tchaikovsky’s complete score from the Library of Congress, and when the Ballets Russes passed through town on tour, he solicited the help of ballet master George Balanchine and principal dancer Alexandra Danilova. After food and drink, the two former members of the Imperial Russian Ballet enlightened Christensen about the choreography (by Marius Petipa and his assistant, Lev Ivanov, who took over when Petipa fell ill) and the characters of the original Mariinsky Theatre production. Christensen took notes, the three of them worked their way through the entire score, and by morning, Christensen had it—the bones of what would become North America’s first full-length Nutcracker production. The rest, as they say, is history. (Touchingly, Wednesday’s opening night performance at the War Memorial Opera House was dedicated to Jocelyn Vollmer, former principal and Snow Queen in that 1944 performance, who passed away this year.)
Artistic director Helgi Tomasson’s current production, dating from 2004, is a dazzler with a distinct San Francisco flavor. Set in the city in 1915, when San Francisco hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, the production offers glimpses of the unique world cultures and flavors brought to the city by the exposition. Wendel K. Harrington’s slide projections blend 1915-era photos with the story. A sumptuous set (Michael Yeargan) recreates the Stahlbaum’s elegant Edwardian living room, and costumes by the late Martin Pakledinaz offer further refined elegance, all of it a feast for the eyes. A fire crackling in the fireplace seems homey and real, and it’s always fun to note items lining the shelves throughout the room that will later appear in Act II. Each performance, I manage to spy some new little detail I’ve missed. Last year: dolls within a cabinet that look distinctly Arabian, Spanish and Russian. This year: toymaker and magician Uncle Drosselmeyer (Val Caniparoli) presenting the adolescent Clara with an elegant lantern-like box that will later morph into the magical changing cabinet that transforms her into an adult. The party scene’s high point continues to be the presentation of Drosselmeyer’s life-sized dolls, particularly Mingxuan Wang’s jack-in-the-box and Lauren Parrott’s wind-up ballerina, in a pink, sparkly, cotton-candy confection of a costume that surely made every little girl in the audience sigh with delight. And of course, there is the show-stealing transformation, post-party, where the tree grows to thirty feet, the music crescendos, and in the blink of an eye, the scenery expands, the people shrink, and it’s pure magic.