Dancing sweets, giant mice and a Nutcracker came to life –– literally –– and contributed to a magical staple of the holiday season at Shea’s Performing Arts Center on Saturday and Sunday.
Locals were able to experience this popular story of “The Nutcracker” performed live in its 11th year in Buffalo, with mystical charm and astute accuracy by some of the best visual and performance artists in the area.
Audience members watched in awe as the Neglia Ballet Artists and The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra presented the annual local production. The cast, dressed in a variety of vibrant colors and dramatic ensembles, decorated the stage and resonated deeply with the audience’s sugary dreams of Christmas. The dancers elegantly captured the child-like charm of the ballet with precision and emotion. The well-known ballet received a large crowd of roughly 3,000 devoted audience members, many of which see the show every year.
Audience member Mary Friona-Celani was excited to be sharing the magic of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet suite with her daughters for the first time.
“It’s a story you hear over the years and the fact that you can only see it around the holidays really makes it feel like Christmas,” Friona-Celani said.
The ballet, originally written in 1892, takes place on Christmas Eve as Marie Stahlbaum’s mysterious relative, Herr Drosselmeyer, uses his magic to bring Marie’s Nutcracker to life.
The actor playing The Nutcracker fighting against the giant rats.
Neglia Ballet Artists had the crowd giggling at the goofy nature of the army of dancing rats which flopped gracefully in line. And audience members gasped when the lead ballerinas pirouetted for minutes on end.
The production also included special touches like a puppet show, fake snow falling from the ceiling and fog.
While the production was off-campus, several UB community members contributed both artistic and technical skills to the holiday fantasy. Donna Massimo, the costume shop manager at UB, was the costume designer for the production. Professor Jon Shimon and UB’s Director of Design and Technology Dyan Burlingame were also involved.
Hannah Mackey, senior theatre design and technology major, worked as the assistant lighting designer.
“This is actually my first time seeing ‘The Nutcracker,’” Mackey said. “I know some people come every year to see this, so it’s a big thing for the community.”
One of the most important parts of the ballet is, of course, the music. The production used the talents of both the Amherst Central High School Concert Chorale and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra to showcase Tchaikovsky’s work. The Amherst Central Concert Chorale, although they are still high school students, sang both beautifully and professionally with the live orchestra. Meanwhile, the BPO’s performance was so perfect that it was easy to forget that it was not pre-recorded.
Matthew Bassett, the Principal Timpani of the BPO, says that he thinks he has performed “The Nutcracker” over 400 times.
“The music [of ‘The Nutcracker’] is so well-known. Various parts of it everybody has heard, and it is so evocative of Christmas or particularly people’s traditional notion of Christmas, which makes you think of snow and presents,” Bassett said.
While he says performing ‘The Nutcracker’ can get repetitive, the magic of the production always makes him excited to play it all again next year.
The arts desk can be reached at arts@ubspectrum.com.
Anastasia Wilds is the senior arts editor. She has been writing for newspapers since her junior year of high school, and she has appreciated all forms of art for even longer. When she’s not writing, she is either reading, listening to music, hanging out with her friends on discord or streaming on Twitch.
