Message from Alberta Ballet

CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON | Artistic Director

Each year, as we prepare The Nutcracker, we think of our youngest audience members.  

We begin imagining their reactions right from our earliest rehearsals in August. It’s why so much of this show is crafted to add wonder and delight to the holiday season. 

The Nutcracker is our largest production and is the culmination of months of work for dozens of people working behind-the-scenes and more than 120 performers who have been fine-tuning their role for months. Alberta Ballet’s dancers bring each of The Nutcracker’s characters to life as the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra drives the adventure forward with Tchaikovsky’s powerful score. And joining the professional artists is a children’s cast of dance students from Alberta Ballet School and Alberta Ballet Classes in the roles of mice, party children and soldiers. Please give them a warm welcome. Even on a stage as big as the Jubilee, their energy and enthusiasm fill the space. 

The Nutcracker is an evergreen masterpiece. It beautifully illustrates the life cycle of dance, from inspiring and enchanting our youngest audience members to the graceful pursuit of excellence from our dancers and our artistic and production teams.  

It takes a great many talented individuals to deliver on all the needs of this artistic institution: on the stage, in the studio, in the office or in a community. This year, we are missing two individuals who each strived in their own ways to support Alberta Ballet’s mission. This past November, we lost Janet Tait, our Head of Senior School and Angie Donahue, our Payroll Administrator.  

Each had been battling cancer, and both kept a close connection to the work and goals of our organization even as their illnesses progressed.

Janet, in particular, is close to the spirit of Alberta Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Our Alberta Ballet School students and many of our dancers benefited greatly from Janet’s gifts for artistic nuance and refinement. Her gifts are also very present in Alberta Ballet’s The Nutcracker as she assisted Choreographer Edmund Stripe in its creation. 

We are grateful to have had the talents and dedication of Angie and Janet. In this time of year steeped in memory and tradition, our hearts and love are with their families and with any others who are missing a loved one this season.  

Together, we celebrate the joy of dance, the power of tradition, and the enduring bonds that connect us all. Here's to a holiday season filled with inspiration, memory, enchantment and the magic. 

Thank you for choosing to include Alberta Ballet in your holiday celebrations. 

Synopsis

Act One

It is Christmas Eve and the Vishinsky family is welcoming guests to a party in their home. Their children, Klara and Nikolai, play ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ with the youngest party guests. Presents are distributed and then Klara and Nikolai lead the children in a boisterous dance.

The parents, in turn, dance a courtly quadrille.

When Klara’s godfather Drosselmeyer arrives, the guests are treated to his magic tricks. Drosselmeyer has also brought life-size mechanical dolls who perform a play. They tell the story of a man who invented a clever mousetrap, one so successful he attracted the wrath of the Rat Tsar. The Rat Tsar took revenge on the man by turning his nephew into a hideous nutcracker. The only way to break the spell was to find someone who would love the nutcracker, not for what he looked like, but for what he was.

In the play, the soldier, who is changed into a nutcracker, is helped by a ballerina who falls in love with him. She defeats the toy Rat Tsar by hitting him on the head with her slipper.

After the play, Drosselmeyer invites Klara to dance and presents her with a nutcracker of her own. Nikolai accidentally breaks the nutcracker, but Klara soon forgives him. Drosselmeyer fixes the nutcracker, and Klara and the girls play with their dolls.

Grandfather and Babushka are invited to dance, the parents and children joining in the fun. The party ends and the guests depart. Klara looks around for her nutcracker. It’s nowhere to be seen. Babushka tells Klara to look again in the morning and packs Nikolai and Klara off to bed.

Later that night, Klara returns to the parlour to search for her nutcracker. The town hall clock strikes midnight and at once she is surrounded by a hoard of mice.

Drosselmeyer appears, rescuing Klara by casting a spell over the mice, sending them to sleep. 

He explains to Klara that it was actually he who was being portrayed in the play earlier that evening and it was he who had built the mousetrap that had angered the Rat Tsar. The Rat Tsar, in revenge, had transformed his nephew, Karl, into a nutcracker, the very nutcracker that Klara was now holding!

Act One - Continued

With Klara’s promise to love the nutcracker, Drosselmeyer employs his magic, causing the room to grow and themselves to shrink. The nutcracker now reappears, life-size to the now tiny Klara and Drosselmeyer. An army of soldiers stream out of the fort to engage in a battle with the cossack rats that have gathered on the other side of the parlour. With the nutcracker leading the soldiers, a fierce battle ensues and eventually the Rat Tsar himself appears. With his powerful magic, he attempts to attack Drosselmeyer, but the nutcracker intervenes to save his uncle.

Klara remembers Drosselmeyer’s play during the party and how the ballerina defeated the Rat Tsar by hitting him on the head with her shoe. She strikes the Rat Tsar on the head, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to attack him with his own scepter.

The Rat Tsar is mortally wounded, and the nutcracker also collapses in pain. Drosselmeyer realizes that his plans and magic are still not enough to transform his nephew. Klara and Drosselmeyer sense that their surroundings are changing and as Klara seeks help, she encounters wolves and fears they wil devour her precious nutcracker.

However, the wolves are attendants to the Snow Tsarina who appears in her sleigh. She instructs Drosselmeyer to stand the nutcracker up and, with a wave of her hand, transforms the nutcracker back into Karl. It takes a moment for Karl to realize he is human again. Once he does, he embraces Drosselmeyer and Klara and thanks the Snow Tsarina for her life-restoring spell.

The Snow Tsarina summons her Snow Princesses and sleigh and guides everyone to a mysterious palace in the distance.

Act Two

The Snow Tsarina leads the sleigh to the gates of the Palace of the Sugar Plum Fairy. There, they are greeted by the Palace Pages and are introduced to the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier.

The celebration continues with dances from the Palace’s confectionary delights. Marzipan dancers take the stage first, followed by Caramel dancers, then Peppermint dancers and then Popcorn.

Klara and Karl dance and are then entertained by the Palace Pages and the Waltz of the Flowers, led by Christmas Rose. The Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier conclude the celebrations with a Grand Pas de Deux and a rousing finale.

EPILOGUE

Very early the next morning, Klara answers a knock at the door. It is Drosselmeyer. He bids her good morning and, from under his cape, produces a nutcracker. A young man, who seems strangely familiar to Klara enters, and as he and Drosselmeyer depart together, Klara begins to wonder whether it was all a dream after all.

Credits

MUSIC CREDITS

Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker 

Performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (Dec. 15 – 24)

Conductor Peter Dala

Alberta Ballet Dancers

Meet your Klara

Casting

Subject to Change

Children’s Cast

Thank you to Land Rover Royal Oak for their Support

Creative Team For
THE NUTCRACKER

Additional Costumes (Act 2) | Timberlake Studios, Lisa Logan

Alberta Ballet Artistic Support

YEE-HANG YAM
Artistic Operations Manager

REBECCA FAUSER
Company Manager

KEN JAMES STEWART, EMMA SLUNT
Stage Managers

ANDREA GINTER
Lead Physiotherapist -
Momentum Health

COMPANY TEACHER
Jennifer Gibson

COMPANY PIANISTS
Juanita Faas
Marina Fedorov
Michael Levin
Mary Martel
Lorel Leal
Matthew Kallio
Helena Barker

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