Both here in San Jose and elsewhere …
Garrett Hudson, Flute
Erin Tsai, Oboe
Jack Marquardt, Clarinet
Tracy Jacobson, Bassoon
Anni Hochhalter, French Horn
Sonata da Chiesa Chamber Ensemble
Anna and Arkadiusz Szafraniec on glass harp
Quartet Konick
Instruments:
Balalaika Prima
Domra Alto
Bayan
Balalika Double Bass
Tamara Volskaya (domra) & Anatoliy Trofimov (bayan)
… but not for me!
Yep, that’s right folks — I’m not playing Nutcrackers this year. How ’bout that.
Still, I think it’s only right to feature various renditions of sections of the work. And I always want to do what is right! So here you go … rendition #1:
Nutcracker as Salsa
One of the friends I made on my travels asked me how “The Nutcracker” should end. It’s not just a good question, it’s actually one of the two most troubling questions that this ballet prompts. Does the heroine, Clara or Marie (she has other names too), return to her parents? Was the ballet just her dream? Or do she and the Nutcracker Prince set off for yet another world — for his own land, which we never see?
If you attend to Tchaikovsky, the score implies that this second act should close as it started: perhaps it’s journeying music, perhaps it’s a distant view of the Sweets landscape. The 1892 premiere ended, most ambiguously of all, with a view of a hive with eight dancing bees: since bees make honey, they are agents of Sweetness, and the hive — as hymned by Virgil — is an image of a perfect state. The Sugar Plum Fairy, deep inside the hive, was the queen bee.
Nobody onstage has connected bees to “The Nutcracker” in a century.
Yes, I should really just leave the Nut in peace, but I had never read this before, so there you go!
… or at least I’m guessing that’s the case. I’ve not watched it all, so forgive me if there is anything offensive in this! It IS quite bizarre!
Me? I’m done with Nutcracker for the year. I won’t see the music again until 2011!
More of Trepak (it appears that Sugar Plum and Trepak win for most popular. This is the Korean Brass Choir … and get a load of the choreography!
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Finally … found an oboe one!
The Russian Dance altered just a small bit. Yee haw!
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker
