The Nutcracker Ballet (2002)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Principle Dancers: Nora Gallovicova, Jozef Dolinsky, Tomas Mazuch, Dalia Pechanova, Ingrid Murcekova, and Ararat Cinarjan
General Director: Dusan Jamrich
Artistic Director: Emil T. Bartko
Choreography: Jozef Dolinsky
Ballet Masters: Jozef Dolinsky, Rafaelom G. Avnikianam
Decoration: Pavol M. Gabor, Vladimir Suchanek
Costumes: Helena Bezakava
Music Performed by Sofia National Opera Orchestra
Conductor: Boris Spassov

Rating: G

Anamorphic: No

My Advice: Rent it.

One of the holiday season’s most loved and well-known features, The Nutcracker is also one of the finest examples of ballet choreography married to orchestral music we have today. The story is fantastical, with romance, action, and surrealism all blended together into one perfect Christmas package. Yet we tend to take this holiday tradition for granted. With this new DVD, you have to chance to watch the ballet with new eyes and learn all over again just why this ballet has earned itself a place in the performance Canon.

The dancing and emotive/acting needs are of course incredibly demanding in this ballet, but the Slovak National troupe is up to the challenge. The Russian Dance has always seemed to me to provide the clearest moments of why dancers are real athletes, worthy of as much admiration as basketball players, for example. The dances in this ballet truly show off a ballet dancer’s necessary muscular strength, cardiac power, and even grace beautifully. George Ballanchine’s choreography (executed by Jozef Dolinsky) plays to a dancer’s strengths and makes you wonder if they even have any weaknesses at all.

The staging is fairly minimal given the lush stages of this ballet I’ve seen in the past, yet it is still one of the most lavish ballet sets ever called for in a storyline. The costumes are similarly gorgeous, especially the wonderful outfits worn by the Sugarplum Fairies and the Snowflakes. Fans of fabric, dramatic makeup, and stage dressing will be in Heaven.

The sound, all-important in a ballet like this one, is all too mediocre. The orchestra is doing some marvelous things with Tchaikovsky’s works, but there are places with the digital transfer is just a wee bit muddled and the sound is less than crystal clear. The visual quality is similarly mediocre: good enough, but not as splendid as you would like this lavish ballet to be. The Spanish and Arabian dances, for example, are almost dark. While some of this could be the staging choices, it would have been nice if the producers could have lightened the transfer up a bit, or if they could have, had some say in how the stage director dressed the stage to ensure more light made it to the film. What we see on the film, after all, is not exactly what the human eye would have seen in person, with regard to light, shadow, and color. That being said, however, you can’t really ruin a ballet as simply gorgeous as this one is, and what we do have is good enough...just not great.

All in all, this DVD should be in everyone’s holiday rental list. This is the one ballet that even “ballet-haters” can confess to liking. If you can’t make it to a live performance of The Nutcracker this holiday season, then the DVD is a good second choice, and you will have it to watch months after the ballet itself is over. After all, you can’t put a real life Sugarplum Fairy in slow-motion or replay the Russian Dance/Trepak over and over again to savor the athleticism and artistry combined.