NBT’s ‘Nutcracker’ ups production value with new sets, costumes, choreography

It just wouldn't be Christmas without "The Nutcracker."

Not for the audiences who have made the ballet a holiday staple.

And certainly not for the ballet companies that stage it - including Nevada Ballet Theatre, which premieres its new $2 million production Saturday at The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall.

With new sets, new costumes, a full orchestra - and new choreography by artistic director James Canfield - NBT's latest "Nutcracker" represents not only an annual rite but a rite of passage for the company.

"It's pretty spectacular," Canfield says of the production, taking a brief break recently between nonstop rehearsals at NBT's Summerlin headquarters. "It's a 'wow.' "

Moreover, "I think it has to be," he adds.

Although "it's not breaking tradition in the sense that it's contemporary ballet," there's "the expectation of the production - and production value," Canfield says.

Especially in Reynolds Hall, where local audiences already have seen such elaborate touring productions as the Broadway musical "Wicked."

As a result, "the bar has been raised," in Canfield's view.

Not that the bar wasn't high to begin with, given "Nutcracker's" uniquely important place in the ballet galaxy.

"The Nutcracker" ranks as "a way of life for every ballet company," Canfield explains. Not only do "we call it our cash cow," the production "opens the doors for the community," giving diverse audiences the chance to experience its magic.

Creating a setting for that magic requires considerably more than a wave of a wand.

In NBT's rehearsal studio, Canfield points and pirouettes in a pair of dance sneakers, tattooed arms outstretched, as he demonstrates how the assembled dancing fairies should bend and blossom to "Waltz of the Flowers," one of Tchaikovsky's most lilting "Nutcracker" melodies.

"Just let it float," he advises, retreating to a seat against the studio's mirrored wall so he can watch them pivot en pointe as they execute his choreography.

"When you step forward, it's got to be alive, another world," Canfield coaches. "Don't be pedestrian. Awaken, ladies!"

Onstage, they'll awaken in a fairy-tale realm - a realm being constructed on Desert Inn Road, at Blue Line Studios, where the sounds of banging hammers and whirring electric drills replace Tchaikovsky.

Crews are busy building a three-story, Victorian-style dollhouse that provides a larger-than-life setting for "The Nutcracker's" magical world.

For this "Nutcracker," the fifth version of the ballet Canfield has choreographed, he returned to the ballet's original source.

That would be author E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," about a special Christmas toy that comes to life, triumphs in battle with a malevolent rodent monarch and whisks his entranced owner to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. (The ballet, with Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's score and choreography by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1892.)

NBT's new version will depict the ballet's fanciful events from the wide-eyed perspective of Clara, who receives the title nutcracker as a Christmas gift from her godfather Drosselmeier and discovers its unexpected powers.

"It's very powerful - like the Ruby Slippers" from "The Wizard of Oz," Canfield explains to the three NBT dancers (Sarah Fuhrman , Leigh Hartley and Betsy Lucas) rehearsing the role of Clara. "It holds powers beyond anything you know."

But "The Nutcracker's" title toy isn't the only seemingly inanimate object that will come to life in NBT's production.

In addition to the giant Victorian dollhouse, this "Nutcracker" features a flying rocking horse (courtesy of Las Vegas-based Flying by Foy, which has "flown" everyone from Peter Pan to Mary Poppins onstage), a 15-foot grandfather clock - and an even more towering Christmas tree, which eventually grows more than 30 feet tall.

"One of the things we wanted to do was go away from traditional scenery," Canfield explains, noting that this production's sets "come together while you watch."

In other words, "it's like supersizing - it's like the dream of Clara," says Montreal-based scenery and properties designer Patricia Ruel , who also designed props for Cirque du Soleil's Strip productions "Ka" and "Love," along with the recently closed "Viva Elvis!"

The production's costumes also underline the production's dreamlike qualities, according to Sandra Woodall , who's designed costumes for companies around the world, from Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet to New York's Dance Theatre of Harlem.

"I have done other 'Nutcrackers,' and each time, the thing that is so exciting is to start with the choreographer and see what thread will be new and fresh," she says.

In NBT's production, it's the Victorian setting that inspired her designs.

"What I really wanted to do was to think about the visual influences of the period," Woodall says, and then "take the elements and try to make a visually fresh version."

Musically, it's more difficult to make "The Nutcracker" sound new and fresh - in part because Tchaikovsky's score is so familiar, and so beloved.

"The hard part is to convince the musicians to think of it as something new," notes musical director Jack Gaughan , who recently completed a six-year run conducting "Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular."

Gaughan hopes the 36 local musicians (26 of them from the Las Vegas Philharmonic) will "be inspired with the production being new," along with the fun of re-creating the "brand-new sounds" Tchaikovsky conjured for the score, he says.

And ultimately, it's that combination of old and new that will set NBT's new "Nutcracker" apart, its creators hope.

"We've been rehearsing till 7, 8, 9, 10" o'clock - "all day," Canfield sighs. "Long days, but it's going to be worth it."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@
reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.