Review: Nashville Ballet's Colorful and Resplendent NASHVILLE'S NUTCRACKER

Since its debut in 2008, Nashville's Nutcracker - choreographer Paul Vasterling's holiday-scented love letter to his adopted hometown - has delighted thousands of audience members eager to experience this particularly rapturous paean to this most wonderful time of the year. Eager to set off on a journey of wonder and delight, to be swept away to a fanciful world of dashing princes and beautiful fairy princesses brought to life vivdly by the accomplished dancers of Nashville Ballet's various companies, audiences for nine successive years now have allowed themselves to be caught up in the spectacle of the production which never fails to enthrall and to entertain.

The company's 2016 rendition of Vasterling's epic work is a joyous and colorful greeting card to the people of Music City, who year after year embrace the stunning artistic achievement with warmth, rewarding the company of dancers - accompanied by the always impressive Nashville Symphony - with applause and ovations justifiably earned by their stunning performances.

While every year's Nashville Nutcracker is laudable, this year's revival seems particularly timely: The unease and turbulence of the world in which we live practically demands we be taken away from the harsher realities of the real world and to be transported to a place filled with fantasy and the colorful ambience of the world of the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cohorts, eager to transport and transform the hundreds of people gathered for each performance.

And if there is a Sugar Plum Fairy more expressive and more transcendent than the ethereal Kayla Rowser, who danced the role at the performance reviewed, we'd be hard-pressed to even imagine her. Rowser's total commitment to her role is startling in her intensity, as she beautifully commands the stage. Paired with the athletic and powerful Christopher Stuart, dancing the role of her cavalier, Rowser elevates an already stirring production with her focused performance.

Nashville's Nutcracker is given the added gravitas of historical context to augment the beauty and wonder of the ballet's physical trappings - which are beautifully experienced, thanks to the work of scenic artist Shigeru Yaji, lighting designer Scott Leathers and costumer Campbell Baird.

While the basic elements of the ballet remain consistent with its artistic forebears - a young girl's holiday dreams of a land of colorful fantasy, of feuding mice and nutcrackers brought to life as handsome princes - Vasterling delivers his own vision of the work by resetting the piece on the Middle Tennessee countryside. Those troublesome mice are battled by a band of toy soldiers led by Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory" himself, supported by native Americans and frontier soldiers. The Dewdrop Fairy (danced with resplendent ease by the lovely Molly Sansone) and her dancing flowers and sprites cavort amid the beauty of The Parthenon Garden. And the lovely tableaux presented by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier are presented as scenes and characters encountered by young Clara (Amber Huggett is one of the most memorable Claras ever to grace the Jackson Hall stage) and her Uncle Drosselmeyer (Judson Veach's portrayal is dramatic and bold, magical and authentic, at the very same moment) during an early autumn visit to the International Exposition at Centennial Park.

Hundreds of students from The School of Nashville Ballet take to the huge Jackson Hall stage for their own stirring moments in the spotlight, and Vasterling makes grand use of their talents. Instead of using them as mere stage props or supernumeraries, as is often the case in lesser productions of The Nutcracker, Vasterling makes them important parts of the evening, giving them their own showcase for their skills.

The professional members of the cast, the talented women and men who comprise the heart and soul of Nashville Ballet and who pursue their art in a city better known for its music, deliver superb performances throughout. The highlight of Act One is most certainly the climactic "Snow Scene," that features the beautiful Katie Vasilopoulos (who continues to evolve as a dancer in every subsequent role she performs) and the handsome and authoritative Jon Upleger. Vasilopoulos and Upleger are superbly paired, allowing each to be spotlighted to grand effect.

Act Two continues with the beautiful "Dewdrop Waltz," danced by the exquisite Mollie Sansone as the Dewdrop Fairy and the commanding Brett Sjoblom as the Nutcracker Prince, performed (with demi soloists Lauren Thompson and Daniella Zlatarev) in a gorgeous setting of garden pinks, greens and lavenders. If there is an onstage moment more breathtaking, more purely theatrical, than the one during Nashville's Nutcracker when the green upstage curtain falls at the end of the exquisitely danced "Waltz of the Flowers," it simply cannot be recalled. It's an electrifyingly gorgeous moment amid a cavalcade of such scenes in Vasterling's masterwork.

Vasterling's imaginative vision of the various worldly offerings in The Kingdom of the Sugar Plum Fairy are brought to life through the performances presented in tribute to young Clara: The Spanish Dance featuring Bridge Taylor, Katie Eliason and Keenan McLaren Hartman; The Chinese Dance of Augusto Cezar and his dragon; the sensual dance of the Snake Charmer and his Lady (Gerald Watson and Julia Eisen); The Russian Dance of Tanner Blee and Philip Perez; Logan Hillman and Julia Mitchell's portrayal of the Swiss shepherd and shepherdess; and of course, the lovely Madame Bonbonniere (Katie Chal) and her Bon Bons.

Nashville's Nutcracker. Concept, story treatment and choreography by Paul Vasterling. Music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Featuring the Nashville Symphony. Presented by Nashville Ballet, at Andrew Jackson Hall, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville. Through December 23. For details, visit www.nashvilleballet.com or call (615) 782-4040 for tickets.

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