I took a friend to one of the last performances of the Balanchine Nutcracker this season at the New York City Ballet. He’d never seen it before; in fact, it was his first visit to the ballet. I myself hadn’t seen The Nutcracker for several years, and, wondering what it would be like to be seeing it for the first time as an adult, I found myself remembering what it had been like seeing it as a child. How upsetting I had found the scene in which Marie’s little brother, Fritz, shatters the nutcracker-doll, the special gift that Herr Drosselmeyer Continue reading

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