“The Nutcracker” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

[rating=5]Dazzling, dynamic, and delicious, “The Nutcracker” is the epitome of perfection! The Joffrey Ballet’s production of this classical dance retains Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s renowned music but is a takeoff on its traditional casting, setting, and story. As compared to its original performance that premiered in Moscow during Christmas week of 1892, the magic is recreated by having the show set in Chicago in 1892, five months before the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition (otherwise known as the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair). This exemplary adaptation by director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon features a clever story by Brian Selznick and remarkable staging by Nicolas Blanc, Adam Blyde, and Suzanne Lopez.

In the current version, Marie (Yumi Kanazawa) and her family are re-envisioned as American immigrants, with Marie’s mother (Jeraldine Mendoza) being one of the sculptors who helped build the World Fair’s noted Statue of the Republic. Marie’s little brother Franz (Elliot King) is an imp who steals an old-fashioned nutcracker in the shape of a military officer—which he then hides in his mother’s wardrobe. Shortly thereafter, the mother and her two children host a number of recent immigrants and fair workers at a Christmas Eve party in their home. That is when the fair’s creator, the Great Impresario (Dylan Gutierrez), happens by with his apprentice (Hyuma Kiyosawa) and tells the crowd about his ideas of what the upcoming 1893 fair will look like. He mysteriously hands Marie a gift of the absconded nutcracker for hers to keep, and then she finds herself under a spell that evening. When she goes to bed, she dreams up a fantasy tale, where the nutcracker has morphed into a real military officer, who becomes her handsome prince. In her dream, the Great Impresario takes her and the Prince (Zachary Manske) on a tour through the upcoming World’s Fair and its various pavilions. There she gets to see ballet dancers who represent locales from throughout the world: most notably Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show (Valentino Moneglia Zamora with Coco Alvarez-Mena, Basia Rhoden, and Julia Rust), the Moorish dancers (Victoria Jaiani and Edson Barbosa), and the solo Chinese dancer Wictor Hugo Pedroso). Above all, the Fair’s Queen, dressed in gold (Jeraldine Mendoza), does a duet with the Great Impresario, and we watch the two of them fall in love, followed by Marie and her Prince. But then again, this coming-of-age story is only a dream, and Marie wakes up from it on Christmas Day.

One of the incredible highlights of this show is the video and projection design by 59 Production. While the projections in the first act are stupendous, those in the second act are out of this world! These are stunning and amazingly breathtaking, and there are not enough words in the English language to describe how magnificent the experience is! There are moments when we see an outline of the fairgrounds in the morning, noon, and night, with its towering Ferris wheel and its highly recognizable domed Administration Building. We enter the shack where Marie and her family live on the fair’s construction site. We witness Marie’s dreamlike state where she travels with the Prince, so on and so forth. What is especially notable is the extraordinary detail in how the projection design is merged with a multitude of sets. For example, early on we see the scraggly little Christmas tree and how it grows and grows and comes towards the audience, while it becomes a part of the background and lit with candles. Later, we see Marie, the Great Impresario, and the Prince sail together on a gondola, and it looks so true-to-life! Thanks to Julian Crouch, the sets in and of themselves are astounding in how well they portray an endless variety of realistic and imaginative scenes. Splendidly done is the use of scrims and various types of curtains (such as ones designed to resemble snowflakes). On top of it all, Crouch is not only the set designer but also the costume and mask designer. What a talent! Creating such spectacular costumes and masks is a skill onto itself! I loved every single one all the outfits! But perhaps one of the most creative inventions are the walnut shells that open and close as the dancers perform. Lighting design by Natasha Katz and lighting recreation by Chris Maravich are thrilling as a means of demarcating how the story progresses from the delights of one pavilion to the next. I especially loved the puppetry by Basil Twist and Tandem Otter Productions; for example, the rats crawling within the house are amusing, and one of whom eventually becomes the Rat King (Edson Barbosa).

Music director and conductor Scott Speck and assistant conductor and pianist Michael Moricz have outdone themselves in their work with the pit orchestra. Special recognition must also go to the party scene music arranged by LJOVA in act one, where the trio of Renée-Paule Gauthier (violin), Sergey Gutorov (clarinet), and Ronnie Kuller (accordion) perform on stage and do a tremendous job.

If there is any one “fault” in the show, it is that the shack where Marie, her mother, and younger brother reside seems much too big. How could they have acquired such a huge space to host such a large Christmas party? In my opinion, what would have been more plausible is for the celebration to have taken place at Hull House, a Chicago settlement house for a community of women residents and their children, originally founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889.

The current production of “The Nutcracker” is full of verve, vigor, vim, and vibrancy, and is a bastion unto itself. The show will electrify those of all ages for a million and one reasons, because there is so much to look at, listen to, and admire.* The ballet is much grander than what anybody could possibly imagine! It is an absolute MUST SEE! It is delightful; it is fun; it is uniquely entertaining!

“The Nutcracker” is playing through December 27, 2022, at the Lyric Opera House, 20 North Upper Wacker Drive, in Chicago.

Single tickets start at $36.

Performance Schedule:

Wednesday, December 21 – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 15 – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, December 22 – 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Friday, December 9 and 16 – 7:00 p.m.
Friday, December 23 – 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 10 and 17 – 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 24 – 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 11 and December 18 – 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
No performance Sunday, December 25, Christmas Day
Monday, December 26 – 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, December 27 – 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Tickets are available for purchase online at -and-https://joffrey.org/performancestickets/2022-2023-season/the-nutcracker/ or by telephone at 312-386-8905 or at the Lyric Opera Box Office, located at 20 North Upper Wacker Drive.

For general information, visit: https://joffrey.org/ and to see other offerings this season, go to: https://joffrey.org/performances-and-tickets/.

COVID protocols can be found here: https://joffrey.org/performances-and-tickets/plan-your-visit/safety-at-the-joffrey-ballet/.

*Speaking of electricity, the 1889 Paris World’s Fair had shown off electric lighting, but it was the 1893 World’s Fair that “took the electrical revolution to the next level.” There electric lights were first pioneered en masse, and the fairgrounds were then known as “The White City.” To get to the fair from Downtown Chicago, the first electrified train in the United States was built: what we know today as the “Green Line” on the Chicago “L”. The Stony Island Avenue and 63rd Street terminus (called the Jackson Park station) was built above the annex to the Transportation Building at the World’s Fair and served as one of the entrances to the fairgrounds. When the fair ended in October 1893, the structure was literally chopped off. (The terminus was torn down sometime around 1983 when the Dorchester Bridge over the Illinois Central Railroad was found to be structurally unsound.) Other remnants of the 1893 World’s Fair still exist, most notably in the edifice of the Museum of Science and Industry. Note that a replica of the Statue of the Republic can still be found on Hayes Drive at the site of the former fairgrounds and still graces Chicago’s Jackson Park today, an area now being repurposed as the grounds for the Obama Presidential Library.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “The Nutcracker”.