Heath Murdoch: The Nutcracker

Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet follows a child’s Christmas Eve reverie, where a Nutcracker doll turns soldier and a domestic holiday scene opens into battles, snow, and pageant-like divertissements. In New York City, the work’s modern identity is closely tied to George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet staging, first presented in 1954 and repeated each winter at Lincoln Center as a civic ritual as much as a performance. This season it is heard with a live orchestra, and also appears in programming at 92NY. One can argue the ballet’s durability rests as much on its score and structure as on narrative.