PNB's Nutcracker Celebrates 25th Anniversary

PNB photos © Angela Sterling

The moon always seems to be full in Maurice Sendak's illustrations. He's done some 90 children's books, two of them cherished icons (Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen), along with one ballet. As it happens, Seattle is the beneficiary of this unique venture into set-and-costume design: the wildly popular Nutcracker, which celebrates its 25th season this year.

It was the early 1980s. Kent Stowell and Francia Russell were running their still-young Pacific Northwest Ballet and dance academy out of the Good Shepherd school in Wallingford. Around the country, in those pre-soccer days, upper-middle class parents were enrolling their daughters (mostly daughters) in dance classes, which were typically run by émigrés. The great democratization of the arts that accompanied the rise of middle class prosperity, that would propel local talents like Mark Morris and Bill Evans to the national stage, proved ideal for Stowell and Russell. Ballet lessons were sophisticated and high-culture; what parent wouldn't want to see their Kimberley master pliés and pirouettes? (French was still considered a mark of sophistication back then.) Russell's school was turning out waves of technically accomplished ballerinas, and though few of them would become professional dancers, their families wanted to see them in action.

This is where the oldest chestnut gets dusted off and polished up. A story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," had been set to music by Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Marius Petipa in 1892; it had "ballet school graduation" written all over it. International stars like Balanchine, Baryshnikov, and Morris added their own versions. Relatively isolated in the Pacific Northwest, Stowell was anxious to do something more original, and in the early 1980s he wrote a note to Sendak, asking if he'd be interested in collaborating on a new Nutcracker.

The premiere in 1983 was a stunning success, with sets full of Sendak's two-dimensional chicanery. A Christmas tree grows, a giant mouse creeps across the set, the proscenium is regularly redefined and reframed. His costumes (mice, moors, soldiers, snowflakes) are whimsical and non-threatening. Stowell's choreography has also held up remarkably well; one marvels at how gracefully the youngsters execute their arabesques. By now, this production has been seen by over two million people.

You can read all sorts of dark morality into Hoffmann's story: a teenage girl dreams about a getting a nutcracker for Christmas; it comes to life, turns into a handsome prince, and they run away. But it's a fairy tale, for heaven's sake; everything is embellishment. Music that twinkles, an audience of little girls with velvet headbands and stars in their eyes. Even if we've seen it 25 times, it's still a story about innocence, so it's like a full moon every time.

Pacific Northwest Ballet presents Nutracker at McCaw Hall through Dec. 30. Tickets online or by calling 206-441-2424.

PNB founder Kent Stowell takes a bow as the 25th season of Nutcracker gets underway.