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After Fayçal Karoui led the orchestra through a brisk overture, once again we saw that wonderful framing device of the children, led by Margot Pitts' almost too-pretty, blue-eyed Marie and her ADD-afflicted brother Fritz (Jonathan Alexander), peering through a keyhole in the downstage scrim curtain which becomes magically transparent to reveal the Stahlbaums trimming their tree the ever-radiant Dena Abergel happily ordering the handsome and complacent Jason Fowler about until she finally decides that perhaps the tree doesn't need that final ornament after all.

In many ways the first act is the most wonderful part of this production. The meticulously presented party, with the children sometimes emulating their parents, sometimes vexing them, is a perfect little vignette of this cozy, middle-class process of teaching children how to behave as, and then become, adults. It's familiar and comforting, even the little disruptions, until the ultimate disruption, the arrival of Herr Drosselmeier in the person of Robert La Fosse. A great actor, he gave a delicately shaded portrait of the odd old man, sometimes fussily punctilious, other times dreamy with just a hint that his mind's on distant and mysterious things. When he sneaks up to the sleeping Marie to repair the Nutcracker doll, he waves his arms above her, but leaves it to us to decide if he's casting a spell or just moving to some music only he can hear. I like this ambiguity in Drosselmeier; it makes his appearance in Marie's dream something which comes from Marie's memories of the party, and not some sort of weird imposition on her sleeping psyche. Elsewhere in the party scene, Aaron Severini was a dashing and high-flying toy soldier, and Georgina Pazcoguin and Stephanie Zungre appropriately doll-like Harlequin and Columbine toys.

As always, the growing tree worked its magic, thanks in no small part to Pitt's frenetic reaction; if she weren't running all over the stage with equal parts excitement and fear the tree wouldn't be half as exciting, but she's a stand-in for us. Very clever. As mentioned, Henry Seth was an exquisitely hammy Mouse King, complete with vorpal sword. As magical as the tree might be, my favorite moment is always when Marie awakes in that magical bed, in the ever-snowing grove of big, fluffy snow-encrusted pine trees (I love everything about Rouben Ter-Arutunian's designs, from the angel on the first-act drop curtain, the little cat staring out the window of the Stahlbaum's house, and, of course, the Kingdom of Sweets!) Sure, Prince (Nicholas Smith) is wearing a tear-away Nutcracker costume over his princely suit, but his transformation is still as enchanting as when I first saw it over forty years ago. It's a beautiful scene, but the finishing touch of magic comes, again, from Marie. She awakes in the middle of a blizzard, wearing nothing more than a nightie, and she's not at all cold, even when she's walking through the snow with one bare foot. But would any young girl who's just had a tiara planted on her head by a handsome young prince even care about the weather? Of course not, at least not in her dreams. I liked Pitts very much; she made the most of every moment her horror at the mice, her awe-struck reaction to the Nutcracker's transformation but never laid it on with that cloying thickness of too many budding princesses.

The Snowflakes dance was zippy but very, very cleanly danced; impressively so for the first performance of the season. I can't imagine it's much fun to actually dance Snowflakes, what with the slippery paper snow covering the floor and getting in one's eyes and nostrils and everywhere, but it's sure a joy to watch, although I wish I actually recognized more than a few faces.
 

Maria Kowroski as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Charles Askegard as her Cavalier in Balanchine's Nutcracker
© Paul Kolnik

In the second act's Kingdom of the Sweets, the golden angels glided weightlessly over the stage, and Maria Kowroski was the strongest I've seen her in the Sugar Plum Fairy's solo, managing the hardest technical bits (those tricky pirouettes from a tight fifth) with ease, and wielding her wand with magisterial grandeur. Then began the happy rush of divertissements. I liked the energy of Savannah Lowery and Amar Ramasar in Hot Chocolate (Spanish). Perhaps this will be the Christmas Lowery finds some epaulement in her stocking? I admired Teresa Reichlen's arrow-taught figure in Coffee (Arabian); how could I not, as that costume leaves little to the imagination. Although she's exquisitely tall and flexible, she's still more lissome than lubricious, and I found myself analyzing how the flow of that long, red, open-fronted skirt of Karinska's costume, always hiding, then baring, Reichlen's long, long legs, made the dance far more erotic than if she'd been in something more revealing. Again, framing is all. It was nice to see Tom Gold looking bouncy and cheeky leading the Candy Canes, and he handled his leaps through double-flicks of his big hula hoop with ease.

Daniel Ulbricht nailed Tea (Chinese) so hard it must still be screaming for mercy; I don't think I've ever seen higher, more emphatic Russian splits! Alina Dronova was a pert and very precise Marzipan Shepherdess, although she declined the triple pirouette to the knee. I'd been looking forward all evening to Ashley Bouder's Dewdrop, and she didn't disappoint, except that she didn't fire up the crowd so much with each of her runs on and off as is often her wont. She's gotten so strong and secure in her technique that, even though her leaps and intricate turns were as strong as ever, if not stronger, she didn't have that air of dancing on the edge of the volcano with which Dewdrops can really bring an audience to life. In other words, she was too good. Regardless, I'll be savoring the image of her high, effortless sautes de chat, almost over the heads of the corps girls, for quite some time.

I've often felt a bit sorry for Charles Askegard partnering the tall and incredibly hyperextended Kowroski in Balanchine's long, tricky pas de deux for Sugar Plum and her Cavalier. She can't be easy to partner, and I recall some Nutcrackers when he'd seem to be entirely out of breath at the duet's end (and then he's got to leap into his mini-solo which starts the coda). But this night Kowroski was strong and solid throughout. If not necessarily brilliant or particularly warm, she and Askegard handled all the adagio's difficulties with ease, and in the series of promenades which conclude the duet, Askegard had her so perfectly poised that even after he sunk to one knee and released her hand, she was absolutely rock-solid in her balance. And at the end of the coda, she hurled herself into his arms with awe-inspiring, risky abandon, right on Tchaikovsky's concluding chord.

So, as the ballet's finale whizzed by, and Marie and her Prince flew back to the real world in their flying, reindeer-drawn sleigh, I basked in the glow of Christmases past, and counted myself lucky that City Ballet can indeed do a terrific Nutcracker when the company puts its mind to it.