I'm a fan of ballet reconstructions. I enjoy peeling back the layers of choreography and discovering what was jettisoned and what endures. It's always a process of seeing ballet from a new perspective. While some reconstructions are more successful than others, I've recently come across this Yuri Burlaka & Vasily Medeydev reconstruction of The Nutcracker for the Stattsballett Berlin featuring Iana Salenko and Marian Walter. It's enchanting! But this has to be prefaced with my relationship to The Nutcracker and how it's changed recently. For most of my life, I simply considered it a treacly moneymaker. It was a cynical take and one based on absolute ignorance. I have been schooled and that started last year when I watched Alastair Macualey, the esteemed ballet historian and former NYT Dance Critic, lead a step-by-step demonstration of the Act 2 PDD with NYCB dancers at NY City Center. It was a comparison of the original Ivanov choreography as danced by Fonteyn in the 1950s (it had already changed somewhat from the 1892 original) and Balanchine's version. It was a revelation. This supposedly treacly ballet was about something far more moving and mysterious. It's a ballet about childhood and imagination, and the fleeting nature of wonderment. It's utterly soaring at times, the crescendos in the PPD keep building and building — but there's an underlying melancholy girding this PDD, reminding us that this world of imagination will all come to an end — the predominant minor key down scales following those soaring crescendos….I learned that Tchaikovsky's beloved younger sister died a year prior to writing this score, and I cannot help but think this ballet is a tribute to her in a way. I was lucky enough to see Sarah Lane and Chun Wai Chan perform the PDD recently with a local ballet company and it brought me to goddamn tears. I'm not ashamed to admit it. That demonstration at City Center is no longer available on YouTube, but you can hear Alastair Macauley talk about the connection between Balanchine's Nutcracker and the Ivanov version that premiered in 1892 in this podcast: Conversations on Dance.

But what I enjoyed so much about this Burlaka-Medyedev reconstruction is that it's not really a step-by-step reconstruction at all, but an homage to the original Imperial libretto and staging. The one that Balanchine grew up with, performed in as a child, and it's the inspiration for the NYCB's version. You can see Ivanov's fingerprints all over Balanchine's Nutcracker. Pointe Magazine wrote about the comparison back when it premiered, noting a couple similarities and differences.

This reconstruction is gorgeously lush. I love the transformations from the parlor into the wintry landscape, the swan sleigh, the pageantry upon entering the Kingdom of Sweets, the focus on Clara/Marie as the central character….and the costumes! The costumes are all based on the original sketches, which were also documented in photographs. The ornate details are what pull me in and I would love to return to this ballet over and over again. I think the only part that really falls short for me is the scarf trick in the PDD. NYCB now does this with a floating disk and even now, it's an aspect of the ballet that still feels disjointed and out of place. Here's a link to the ballet via the TG Channel, the King Dancers. It's a Chinese streamer with the fussiest interface. But you can also stream it via Belaireclassiques for a small fee.

And if you've made it this far, here are some photos from the original 1892 Imperial St. Petersburg Ballet premier also courtesy of the TG channel, the King Dances.