George Balanchine's The Nutcracker
The Joy of the New York City Ballet in an Exciting Family Holiday Motion Picture.
Angles and sugarplums, a magic prince, a dreamy young girl, a mysterious old man and a Christmas tree that gorws sky high. Enter the world of this enhanting new version of the timeless Yuletide fantasy, featuring the New York City Ballet and narrated by Kevin Kline.
Member Reviews
my 3 year old daughter loves this - ArthurClarke
My daughter loves the music, story, expressiveness, and of course all the dresses of the ballet. She understands the abstract roles of the characters (snowflakes, the sugar plum fairy, Marie's dream) and is as moved by Tchaikovsky's music as us adults. Truly educational and eye-opening for children. The narration has a French track, which makes this accessible to francophone children.Christmas Candy - Russell1
This is a beautiful production -- costumes, sets, and dancers -- all beautiful. Balanchine's choreography is simply suberb -- stylish, elegant, wonderfully expressive. If this production has a flaw it's the presence of Macauley Culkin. Not little Macauley, himself, mind you. He does a good job. But the role of Drosselmeyer's nephew has been written into the ballet for him, and quite frankly it spoils the story and detracts from the overall impact of the production because it uses up time and music that would be much better spent on real dancers dancing. It makes the story a "children's story", a story about a little boy and a little girl on a trip to fairy land, instead of a story about a little girl and her magical adventure with her heroic nutcracker. This is a good version to use to introduce children to the ballet. For adults, it's worth seeing for the design, the choreography, the dancing. For a more intense story line try Barishnikov's American Ballet Theatre production.
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my 3 year old daughter loves this - ArthurClarke
My daughter loves the music, story, expressiveness, and of course all the dresses of the ballet. She understands the abstract roles of the characters (snowflakes, the sugar plum fairy, Marie's dream) and is as moved by Tchaikovsky's music as us adults. Truly ...Christmas Candy - Russell1
This is a beautiful production -- costumes, sets, and dancers -- all beautiful. Balanchine's choreography is simply suberb -- stylish, elegant, wonderfully expressive. If this production has a flaw it's the presence of Macauley Culkin. Not little Macauley, ...