It’s beginning to look a lot like snowflakes, sugar plums and ‘The Nutcracker.’
By: Anthony Stoeckert
Graham Lustig enjoyed an illustrious career as a ballet dancer in Europe. The London native trained at the Royal Ballet School, danced with the Dutch National Ballet as a soloist, and won numerous honors for choreography, including a Laurence Olivier award for his ballet Inscape. In all his dancing life, though, Mr. Lustig has never performed in The Nutcracker.
That may be hard to believe in the United States, where Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic is almost certainly the most performed ballet. But in Europe, while The Nutcracker is performed on occasion, it’s not the tradition it is here.
"It’s not crazy ‘Nutcracker’ time every winter," Mr. Lustig, artistic director for the American Repertory Ballet, says of Europe. "We do other pieces, but not ‘Nutcracker’ (as much as it’s done here)."
Today, Mr. Lustig is a big part of New Jersey’s Nutcracker scene. He’s the mastermind behind the ARB and Princeton Ballet School’s production of The Nutcracker, which will be performed at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton, and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, Nov. 18 to Dec. 17.
Having never fought off a rat king didn’t prevent Mr. Lustig from imagining his version of The NutcrackerThe Nutcracker to be gorgeous as well. His version takes place in the Edwardian period of the early 20th century, a time when women were more emancipated, and the main character, Marie, "might have actually thought of taking on a rat king to defend the Nutcracker that she loves."
"The (ballet’s traditional) muted colors of the party scene the browns, the blues, the whites, the creams, the grays give way to a more colorful world in the battle scene when she falls asleep and sees the rats attacking her nutcracker," Mr. Lustig says. "And of course she defends him, fights off the rat king, and he transforms from being a nutcracker doll into a handsome young cadet."
Mr. Lustig also added a character to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story, a cousin of Marie’s named Vera. "She’s being courted by a young cadet," Mr. Lustig says of Vera. "And that gives the younger Marie not only a cadet to wish for for herself, but she also sees herself being a few years older, an older teenager, and maybe falling in love for the first time."
Adding these touches doesn’t result in the production becoming something foreign to Nutcracker lovers the traditional story is all there. Mr. Lustig compares the adaptation process to working on an opera, where a director auditions singers and works with an orchestra, designers and others to produce the work.
"As a choreographer, you are also kind of the director as well," he says. "You create it with the company. You create it with the dancers, with the designer. You bring that to the stage, you work with a lighting designer, and the whole thing comes together."
The annual process actually begins in the summer, when repairs are made to costumes and sets. About 200 dancers audition and after parts are assigned, children’s rehearsals begin in October (learning how to dance in a rat costume takes some practice). Then come the rehearsals at theaters, dress rehearsals and, of course, the performances. Helping along the way is everyone from parents who volunteer to watch children backstage to a technical director, music director and wardrobe people.
"It actually takes an army of people to make this happen," Mr. Lustig says.
This Nutcracker season is Mr. Lustig’s eighth. "I suppose there is something kind of cyclical about it," he says. "As the Indian summer days begin to draw down, the leaves begin to change, there’s a nip in the air, you know around the corner is Thanksgiving and ‘Nutcracker.’"
Working with new students and dancers each year is also exciting. "There’s something absolutely spellbinding about very young people, as young as 7 years old, who take responsibility, who take on characters," Mr. Lustig says. "Sometimes they are creatures, like a rat or a mouse. Sometimes they’re being spoiled children at a party or they’re being lovely children at a party. Or they’re being a bon-bon or a little clown. And it’s absolutely magical when you see a young person taking the stage and performing something, becoming somebody…"
For some audience members, The Nutcracker can also serve as an introduction to ballet. "My bigger hope is that people who come to see American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet School, in doing our ‘Nutcracker’ will go, ‘Wow, this company is really cool," Mr. Lustig says. "’They do something a bit different, I’ll come back and see some (of their other productions).’"
To help illustrate what dancers do, Mr. Lustig compares dance to athletics. Both take tremendous physical abilities, but in sports, you see sweat and dirt and how hard the athletes are working.
"(In ballet), you have to train and shape your body every day," he says. "You have to work against your physical barriers. You push harder and harder every day to get your legs stronger, to jump higher and make yourself better. But we don’t want to see the effort. Everything has to be graceful and elegant and without force."
For Mr. Lustig, the other rewards are watching his young students grow into new roles each year, progressing from a mouse to one of the children at the party to a solider or bon-bon.
"For me personally, that’s the greatest joy," he says. "I suppose also sitting in the audience with families around me, hearing comments of young people and their parents who really appreciate what we’re doing. Hearing those private comments said to parents in enthusiasm, that’s as valuable as a whole audience applauding. And that has to put you in the mood for Christmas, doesn’t it?"
Graham Lustig’s The Nutcracker will be performed at McCarter Theatre, 91 University
Place, Princeton, Nov. 18, 7 p.m.; Nov. 19, 24-25, 1, 4:30 p.m.; Nov. 26, 1 p.m.
Tickets cost $29.50-$39.50. The children’s Nutcracker Tea Party will take place
Nov. 19 and 26, 11:30 a.m. For information, call (609) 258-2787. On the Web: www.mccarter.org.
Other performances: Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, West Lafayette and Barrack
streets, Trenton, Dec. 9, 2 p.m., $18-$28, (609) 984-8400, www.thewarmemorial.com
State Theatre, 15 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, Dec. 16, 8 p.m., Dec. 17, 1,
4:30 p.m., $25-$45, (732) 246-7469; www.statetheatrenj.org

