If you are a ballet lover, use Twitter and don't yet follow the New York Times's Alastair Macaulay, you really should. His timeline is a witty mix of ballet facts and observations, and world views and opinions.
He has probably seen more productions of The Nutcracker than any other living soul, so who better to provide the ‘rules' for a traditional Nutcracker.
He kicks off with,
Basic rule for traditional “Nutcrackers”: A: Drosselmeyer should only be seen in Act I, Sugar Plum only Act II
which instantly puts a large number of Nutcracker productions into the non-traditional category. Here are his other rules:
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule B: Clara and Nutcracker must be played by children who only dance in the party.
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule C: Only Clara and the Nutcracker travel to the realms of Snow and Sweets, where they do not join in the dances
— Alastair Macaulay (@AMacaulayNYT) December 2, 2016
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule D: Mère Gigogne/ Mother Ginger is an outsize pantomime dame with 6/8 children dancing out from her crinoline
— Alastair Macaulay (@AMacaulayNYT) December 2, 2016
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule E: The tree must grow huge – as Balanchine said, it's the ballerina of Act One
— Alastair Macaulay (@AMacaulayNYT) December 2, 2016
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule F: the great transformation music between the battle and the snow must NOT be danced.
— Alastair Macaulay (@AMacaulayNYT) December 2, 2016
He warns,
Don't tell Trump or UKIP the “Nutcracker” basic rule G, which is….
Basic trad "Nutcracker" rule G. The Sweets realm contains people of diverse races and nationalities living in multicultural harmony
— Alastair Macaulay (@AMacaulayNYT) December 2, 2016
Macaulay concludes by tweeting,
Balanchine alone observes “Nutcracker” rule F. But rules A-E and G are widespread across the USA. They make “Nutcracker” large-spirited.
“Large-spirited”… yes!
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
Oh! I so love Nutcracker Rule G – I wish it were like that in the real world.