Art N' About

Author: ELSPETH PIERSON

Every year around this time, my mother starts listening to the "Nutcracker." She pulls out her scratch-free carefully guarded disc and slips it into the hungry velvet slot of the CD player and the sounds of the London Philharmonic spill through the kitchen, down the stairs and into my bedroom.

The timing of this event is precise - the Nutcracker is not allowed in our house before Thanksgiving Day. As my mother pointed out to me this Thanksgiving, however, there are no rules against starting very early in the morning.

The "Nutcracker" has become tradition in many American households, and given the established air it has taken on one might take to imagining Thomas Jefferson striding along the rows of his Virginia plantation humming the "Nutcracker March."

This, however, was not the case. The Nutcracker Ballet is based on a book by E.T.A. Hoffman entitled "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," and was not performed until 1892, a year after the legendary choreographer Marius Petipa commissioned Tchaicovsky to write music for a Nutcracker Ballet. The first performance took place in Russia at the Mariinsky Theatre.

From there it migrated to Western Europe in the 1930s and finally to America a decade later, when in 1940 it was performed by Ballet Russe. The first American "Nutcracker" was written by Lew Christensen and performed by the San Francisco Ballet in 1944 and from there it took off to become an American tradition.

Over 150 ballet companies across the country now perform the Nutcracker Ballet each holiday season and the performance's popularity now puts it above any other ballet in the dance repertory in terms of annual viewers.

Though the annual performance by the San Francisco ballet remains one the most respected and well attended, other performances have acquired a reputation for their holiday entertainment as well. Closer to Middlebury, the Boston Ballet and the New York City Ballet are both known for their renditions of the holiday favorite.

Despite the fact that I haven't attended a performance since middle school, something made me buy a ticket to the Boston Ballet's "Nutcracker" this year. There is something irresistible about the story of Clara, a young German girl who dreams of a battle between her Nutcracker prince and a seven-headed mouse king.

The scenery is equally enticing, beginning with the opening scene in the Stahlbaum drawing room and the start of the annual family Christmas party. The room is filled by a beautiful tree and a grand display of festive decorations.

As the scenes shift, the music grows louder and the dancers sashay gracefully through the performance and audiences harken back to the excitement of their own holiday traditions.

After watching the uncontained joy spread across my mother's face on Thanksgiving morning when she finally heard the opening chords of her beloved ballet, I remembered just what it is I love about the Nutcracker. It might still be a fairly new tradition for Americans, but it helps keep us young at heart.