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Reinforced by scenery and costumes, Tomasson has reworked the scenario emphasizing a story line with healthy doses of reality. The production positively sang “San Francisco, open your Golden Gate, You let no stranger wait outside your door...” to the tune of $3.5 million.

In the interests of history and with evident graciousness, the company’s management invited the available members of the original cast to a pre-performance dinner, including conductor Fritz Behrens, now 97, and a host of dancers I have admired; Celina Cummings Felsch, the original rose in Waltz of the Flowers; Janet Sassoon, the original doll in Act I; Nancy Johnson, an Angel, and Jocelyn Vollmar, the original Snow Queen, which she also danced for her final stage appearance.

One final preliminary comment: the production collaborators include in their credits Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut. Talk about Volte Face!

This version starts with an opening scrim card reading “With the Compliments of the Season,” with sweet-toned pastel flowers, a butterfly, the fragrance of nostalgia summoned. House lights dimmed, the card became the frame for a slide display of evocative views of San Francisco; the old Cliff House; horse drawn cable cars, a lone island in the bay, separate views of a boy and a girl in period costumes, a business street with the sign Drosselmeyer Clock Co. A quick blackout to Drosselmeyer (Ashley Wheater) in his shop preparing the Nutcracker doll for the party; a mother in a delicious Poiret type wrap entered the shop with her daughter to make a purchase. The transaction, a clock selected, cash exchanged, mother and daughter departed, and Drosselmeyer quickly changed his apron, donned his colorful cloak and departed stage right. The nephew, nowhere to be seen, I wondered about connecting to budding adolescence

Clock shop dismissed, we see a street with Victorian and Edwardian Houses, single family or flats, stylistic range and gingerbread trim positively shrieking San Francisco. The street characters become a cop on his beat, a nurse wheeling her young charge in a baby buggy; two nuns admiring the young life; a flower seller; two boys toting a Christmas tree; a butcher asking directions with a goose neck dangling graphically down his basket; the inevitable guests with packages, one or two of whom mount the steps of one house.
 

Ashley Wheater as Drosselmeyer in Tomasson's new Nutcracker
© photo courtesy of SF Ballet

After Drosselmeyer wended his way, we are invited in to a large bay-windowed living room, with a curving stairway mid stage left. Mid-stage right now possesses a breakfront with a battery of dolls who figure in Act II. The toys given out are variegated this time, including a drum, a piccolo, a trumpet, clearly echoing what the orchestra plays in the raucus interrupting music. Even the girls get less traditional gifts.

The Paciotti/Sohm partnership retained its usual excellence. A new relationship of Clara to Dad, clearly establishing her approaching young womanhood, is more logical to the story’s development. The grand- parents, neither doddering or whimsical,looked as if they remembered San Francisco in the Gay Nineties; they are still vital.

Tomasson has beefed up the masculine participation in the doll section considerably. A Jack-in-the-Box capitalizes on Castilla’s flexibility, arabesques and accomplished splits. If anyone remembers him, think Robert Blankshine in the Joffrey Ballet of the mid-60's. Lofranko’s Tin Soldier enjoyed jerky extensions and strong sword flourishes while Bramer had the requisite number of stiff port de bras but her variation seemed pallid.

After the requisite social dances, farewells, and Clara’s late night foray to pick up the Nutcracker doll, the transformation begins as she falls asleep; Drosselmeyer comes shooting up via the trap door where the odalesque used to disappear in the prior production. The Nutcracker is placed by the fireplace down stage left, everything fades away; Clara and Drosselmeyer are left alone on the blank stage. He performs his magic with the tree; the packages become huge, the breakfront gigantic and the mice insinuating over boxes, out from corners. Down comes the breakfront's lower half like WW II landing craft; the tin soldier army emerges with rifles at the ready. Through the same entry the cannon appears but the toy horses rear their heads with their riders through the wings. Meantime, the Rat King has crawled on stage from the prompter’s box, his mask enlivened by fantastic whiskers, almost Drosselmeyer’s shadow side. The Nutcracker, enlarged, comes forth from the fire grate to direct the army and engage the Rat King. Clara has managed to get a couple of tin soldiers to have a mouse trap ready, and when the Rat King backs up his tail gets engaged, as laughter is heard from the audience.

Scenery, soldiers and mice disappear; Clara is left alone with the fallen Nutcracker. He rises from his fallen position, takes off his mask revealing in this instance Gonzalo Garcia.

The segue into the Snow Scene is accomplished by a dazzling rise of a curtain; four students in white horse masks and mane pull a silver filigree carriage with the Snow Queen and King (Tan/Martin) to center stage. The Snow Queen’s tutu owes a great deal to snowflake design, the King enjoys his share of arabesque jetes, even a brief variation with tours en l’air; it’s obvious that male virtuosity has catapulted beyond Lew Christensen’s available stable of partners when he choreographed the snow scene. Tomasson’s assignment for the Snowflakes is spikier, less fluid, more demanding pointe work; disparate ensembles of three and four operate at the same time, but the effect is dazzling, and the response was generous and enthusiastic. The silver filigree carriage and the prancing horses now become the vehicle for Clara, the Nutcracker Prince and Drosselmeyer. Tan and Martin danced with sheen and glitter.

After the interval, further innovations arrived. Gone is the over-the top sugar-rush decor, thank heaven, replaced by evocations of the glass San Francisco Conservatory in Golden Gate Park; the stage is alight with soft pinks, peaches, apricot hues. In the place of angels in diagonals are lady bugs,butter and dragon flies, students whose straight legs and port de bras evidence several years of serious study. Into their midst bourrees the Sugar Plum Fairy (Maffre), who inspects them, guides them and commands gently, dancing through and with them. With the beguiling insects, I wondered if Tomasson had referred to early Twentieth Century photos of Peters Wright, veteran local studio and harbinger of dancing modernity in San Francisco. They appeared at the Exposition, as did Loie Fuller and her dancers.

When the traveling trio is borne in by their prancing quartet, Garcia takes to air as part of his explanation of the battle with the mice. Combined with clear mime, the effect is startling. He departs after his solo, leaving Clara and Drosselmeyer to inhabit the carriage which changes position over the course of the subsequent variations. The simple device deters the feeling of Act II as a static piece.

The Spanish trio, led by Brandenhoff, flanked by Terrado and Castilla, posture in profile, black hatted; Miner and Vasilli in red-trimmed yellow, flounce generous skirts and petticoats. Nezerem and Moises Martin bear an Aladdin’s Lamp from which Van Patten, in glittery blue Zobeide trousers, appears, to be lifted, swooped and turned until she is returned to the lamp well. The Chinese variation featured Pascal Molat leaping for his life in the face of a multi-parted red dragon. While the leaping occupied nine-tenths of the variation, it is gratefully free of overtly phony Chinoiserie.
 

Tina LeBlanc and Gonzalo Garcia in the Grand pas de deux
in Tomasson's new Nutcracker
© photo courtesy of SF Ballet

Three wasp waisted, can-can tutus cover the Mirlitons; no more misplaced pan pipes, thank you. Their assignment included ronds de jambes right and left, some swishing of short beguiling, curvy striped tutus, and a faint little touch of le can can. One of the trio, Courtney Clarkson, new to the corps, was a Jackson International Ballet Competition finalist in 2002. With Joseph Phillips, she is the second imported alumni from Jackson’s Competition in recent years.

Madam du Cirque appeared with a gaggle of small commedia dell’arte figures in black and white. She, bedecked with two red and white-striped circus tents joined in the middle, sported a basque Sophie Tucker or Mae West would have envied. After much coaxing, her voluminous skirts emitted a small dancing bear to the delight of everyone present as he performed his tricks and Madame regarded him fondly. He didn’t want to leave the applause.

Tomasson has placed the Sugar Plum as the central ornament in Waltz of the Flowers; when ballerinas and ensemble become accustomed to it, it will exhibit its own patina. The solo asks for frequent arabesques jetes, frequent renverse turns which positively melt with that music. Maffre, queenly, gracious, seemed a little under her usual steely brilliance with the new dimensions of the role.

The Waltz concluded, The Sugar Plum Fairy presents Clara with a tiara. Enchanted, Clara is led to regard herself in a small kiosk mirror. She steps into the kiosk; the door closes. The Sugar Plum Fairy’s pages turn the kiosk around and from the opposite side Le Blanc and Garcia emerge for the Grand Pas de Deux. It melts with emotion and bravura; Tomasson knows it is a harbinger of love and has given the ballerina and her partner winning moments of mutual acknowledgment. At least twice in the adagio the ballerina executes running leaps to the Prince’s shoulder. Le Blond and Garcia exhibited the chemistry of a great partnership; the audience response was vociferous.

Garcia’s variation is air borne, deceptively simple. The Sugar Plum variation moves spatially more than the traditional one, but is sur la place and spiky enough in the right places to compete with the standard choreography. In the coda, traveling fouettes are choreographed on the diagonal to down stage right before the finale and another spectacular life.

While there is the usual reprise of the variations, everything vanishes where Clara and the Nutcracker usually depart. Household scenery is trundled on with alacrity; the chaise is prepared for Clara who awakens with the Nutcracker at her side. She rushes up the stairs happily to be embraced by her mother as the curtain falls.

The gold curtain lifted slightly in the middle to allow for bows of the principals before the full curtain rose for the entire second act cast. The orchestra center audience was on its feet cheering. Bouquets were duly distributed to the principal ballerinas; Helgi, justly happy, led his colleagues on to the stage to acknowledge an audience which responded to his expectations. This new production, amortized over the minimum of a decade, doubtless will demonstrate that going first class provides a like response.