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- Sex & Nudity (10)
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- Frightening & Intense Scenes (3)
- Spoilers (3)
Certification
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Sex & Nudity
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- This is not your typical, cozy, feel-good "Nutcracker". It is not even as cozy as the Maurice Sendak version (which was rather frightening), and not really family-oriented at all. It is more adult-oriented than most other "Nutcracker"s. Except for the fact that Drosselmeyer gives out presents, one would hardly know that the story has anything to do with Christmas in this version, because only the bottom of the tree is shown - after it has grown to humongous size. The audience never sees it grow at all, and it is difficult to tell in this production if it even is a tree.
- No actual sex is shown, and there is no nudity. The "erotic" moments in this 2008 version will probably go right over the heads of pre-teenage children too young to understand (if they see it), but this production is not really for them, and here are a few things to be aware of. The interaction between Clara (called Masha in this version) and the Nutcracker Prince in the last part of Act II seems quite erotically charged compared to other interpretations, except perhaps for Matthew Bourne's "Nutcracker!". Even Mark Morris's "The Hard Nut" isn't as passionate as this version. Masha and the Prince's relationship is treated as a full-blown, ultra-romantic one, with hints of sex absent from most other "Nutcracker"s, although not in a tawdry, cheap manner as in Maurice Bejart's "Nutcracker". The deep love that Masha shows for the Nutcracker before his transformation into a Prince is the love of a close friend for another close friend, not the love of a girl for a doll or a toy, except when she first encounters him at the Christmas Party. In this version, the Nutcracker always seems as if he were alive, not just an inanimate toy, and he is played by an adult dancer as in the Bolshoi Ballet version. Earlier, when an actual life-sized toy is substituted for a dancer, we see Drosselmeyer carrying him, but once the Nutcracker starts interacting with people, it is the adult dancer playing the role, so Masha never picks him up or holds him in her hands. The two embrace many times over the course of the ballet, even before the Nutcracker turns into a Prince. After he does so, it becomes more of a relationship between two potential lovers rather than close friends, and it is played out in a more adult manner than usual.
- Masha's father, who is usually depicted as a kindly, dignified, gentle man, is depicted in this "Nutcracker" as a coarse buffoon, not even as caring as the father in "The Hard Nut". He lusts after one of the kitchen maids and is constantly chasing the woman. His wife - Masha's mother - is exceptionally self-absorbed and treats Masha with utter contempt. Drosselmeyer also seems to be having a certain amount of fun (that is, he flirts with Masha's mother, and she with him).
- Lawyer and part-time critic Henry McFayden, Jr., the editor of an online blog called HDVD Arts, states that Drosselmeyer is a sexual predator who lusts after Masha in this version; there is no direct evidence of this, but it is true that he is very, very creepy. When he first sees Masha at the Christmas Party he touches her hair with a smile that looks like a leer, but Masha doesn't seem disturbed by this in the least. This "Nutcracker" heroine, unlike Clara in the Maurice Sendak version, is not afraid of Drosselmeyer at all.
- McFayden has also found Masha's slow dance right after the battle with the rats intentionally seductive and even vulgar; it is up to the viewer to decide. She performs it as a solo; it is not a duet with the Nutcracker Prince as in several other versions. At one point in the dance, Masha does crouch on the floor, then rolls on her back, and spreads her legs apart for just an instant, which McFadyen considers especially disgusting, but then, there may not have been any sexual meaning intended, and it is possibly just part of the choreography (the snowflakes in the "Snowflakes Waltz" also roll on their backs, and they're not trying to seduce anyone, although McFayden also implies that this moment is also "vulgar").
- Masha's so-called "seduction" of the Nutcracker (who, at this point in this particular production is still a Nutcracker) happens during the music which normally would accompany her first dance with the Prince, but in this version the Nutcracker does not become a Prince until well into the second half of the ballet, during the harp cadenza in the "Waltz of the Flowers".
- When the rest of the court reappears onstage for the wedding celebration, and Masha and the Prince embrace, she smiles at him and then gives him an "air kiss", but this section does not have as directly sexual a tone to it as the Adagio of the Pas de Deux does.
- There is no kissing between Clara and the Prince in the traditional production of "The Nutcracker", but some productions over the last few years have added it, or at least made the couple's feelings for each other more outwardly romantic, including the very recent (2010), acclaimed Ratmansky production for American Ballet Theatre.
- The "Dance of the Reed Flutes" is performed in the Chemiakin "Nutcracker" (the one under discussion here) by three dancers costumed as bumblebees. At one point, the three turn around and wiggle their backsides, and there is a large closeup (maybe intended for comic effect) of one of these backsides wiggling. The result has the effect of seeming as if the bee were "shaking its booty", so to speak.
- NOTE: Some of the more erotic aspects described above have been toned down in other stagings of this production, perhaps because the dancers preferred it that way or because other live audiences might not be as receptive to the more suggestive moments. The description above is based on what is seen on the DVD edition.
Violence & Gore
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- Unlike many "Nutcracker"s, everything that happens in the story after the Christmas Party really does take place: the Battle with the Mice, the visit to the fairy kingdom, the Nutcracker becoming a Prince, and Masha and the Nutcracker Prince falling in love. It is not a dream conjured up for her by Drosselmeyer.
- Masha's parents are not especially violent, but they treat her quite cruelly in this "Nutcracker", literally pushing or shoving her out of the way whenever she tries to talk to them, while they shower her brother Fritz with attention. They eventually drive Masha to tears by doing this, but Drosselmeyer notices and calls her attention to the Nutcracker, and it is then that her relationship with the Nutcracker begins.
- Some of the rats are wounded in battle. The Rat Emperor (the Mouse King in other versions) does not seem to get killed in this version.
- The last thing we see in this production, before the cast, director, conductor, and orchestra take their curtain calls, is a grille which rises to reveal a giant wedding cake that fills the stage, and at the very top are miniaturized candy versions of Masha, dressed in her wedding gown, and the Prince. Chemiakin bluntly states that these are not replicas of the couple, they ARE the couple, and the rats that the Nutcracker defeated in Act 1 are nibbling at the cake, rapidly approaching the top of it. It is strongly implied that they are the ones directly responsible for this, and that they will eventually eat Masha and the Prince.
Profanity
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- There is no dialogue heard, but it is sometimes pantomimed. Still, there is no profanity whatsoever, not even in pantomime.
Alcohol, Drugs & Smoking
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- The adult guests at the Christmas Party are all drunk by party's end, but it's not intended to be funny. One gets the impression that they are meant to be rather repulsive. This is not found in any normal version of "The Nutcracker".
Frightening & Intense Scenes
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- Drosselmeyer's appearance looks as if it were strongly influenced by Count Orlac, the main vampire in "Nosferatu".
- At the end of the Christmas Party, Masha suddenly hallucinates that the adults have become strange-looking animals (no reason is given) and is terrified. It may be intended as an omen of what will eventually happen to her. In this version of the ballet, she becomes more frightened than usual as the room starts to change after midnight and the magic spell begins. (In fact, she becomes so frightened that she faints.)
- At the Great Hall of the Kitchen of Sweets, the Nutcracker fights with, and kills, the Fly-Person, an insect-like creature which challenges him to a duel, instead of simply relating his battle with the mice to the assembled Court. Masha is so filled with concern for the Nutcracker that she cannot even watch the fight, and she embraces him with relief after he emerges victorious.
Spoilers
Sex & Nudity
- The slow Pas de Deux Adagio in Act II , danced by Masha and the Nutcracker Prince instead of by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier as it is in many versions including the 1892 original, has a more erotic tinge to it than usual; Masha seems to be enjoying it immensely, and her moves, rather than being "classical" in the strict sense of nineteenth-century ballet, could be called "sexy". At one point, the Prince takes Masha's head between his hands and rubs it gently; she smiles as if she were enjoying a good massage. At the high point of the Adagio, she and the Prince rush toward each other from opposite ends of the stage and kiss. (It is a realistic kiss, not the "symbolic" pantomime kind found in productions of Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" and other ballets.) But she seems to feel a sense of worthlessness, and hangs her head with a look of shame and despair (she has been snubbed by her own parents - who in this version are very self-centered and unlikable - during the Christmas Party, and has generally been treated by her elders in the normal world as a nuisance). Then. from behind the Prince takes her face in his hands gently and caresses it, and Masha immediately responds with a look of what seems like sexual arousal. Still standing behind her, the Prince rocks her head gently and buries his head on her back, almost as if he were kissing it.Their dance then becomes more "heated" and intense, almost as if it were symbolic of foreplay, with Masha clearly becoming sexually aroused as, from behind, the Prince takes her in both his arms and lifts her over and over. As the dance nears its end, the couple caresses and looks at each other longingly; at the very end of the dance, Masha grabs the Prince's hand, looks at him as if urgently suggesting that they to do something together (possibly announce their intention to marry), and the two run offstage with smiles on their faces, the Prince pointing the way. It is unclear what this moment actually means in the production, and this is strictly open to a viewer's interpretation; it could be that the couple is implied to be merely kissing again offstage, but one blogger has even suggested that Masha and the Prince are having a pre-marital "quickie". The Prince returns immediately to dance the "Tarantella", followed by Masha who dances the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", and then, as the wedding celebration begins, the couple, backed by what seems like everyone else in the Kingdom of Sweets, performs the "Coda", during which they embrace tenderly again.
Violence & Gore
- Masha and the Prince's wedding is not shown, only the celebration preceding it, but at the end of this version of the ballet, they are apparently killed by being turned into candy statues. Sometime after their wedding, they are somehow miniaturized and turned into sweets, a highly disturbing finale emphatically not found in any other "Nutcracker". It happens offscreen between the celebration preceding the wedding and the final scene -which occurs later at an unspecified time. No one is actually shown committing any sort of gruesome violence on the lovestruck couple. (There is an implication that they have been baked, since what we see in the Apotheosis is a grille to what might be a giant oven. The Rat Cardinal, a new character, is seen earlier with Drosselmeyer browsing through what looks like a cookbook, as if he were trying to find an adequate recipe, and it is implied subtly that the recipe may have been one to bake Masha and the Prince.) This is not just an interpretation of what is going on; in his book ''Staging the Nutcracker", Mikhail Chemiakin, who conceived and directed this production, says nothing specifically about the couple being baked, but does directly state that the two are turned into "sugar figures" for eternity. We cannot be sure if what happens to Masha and the Prince is some kind of sacrifice they make out of love, in order to stay together in the Kitchen of Sweets, or if they have been tricked by the rats into suffering their fate.
Frightening & Intense Scenes
- During the "Snowflake Waltz", which takes place near a cemetery in this version, a snowstorm comes up and Masha and the Nutcracker literally nearly freeze to death, until they are rescued by Drosselmeyer, who, at this point, seems to be deliberately foiling the Rat Cardinal's plans. Immediately after the couple's rescue, the Rat Cardinal, who is also there, gives a look of exasperation and frustration, as if he wanted Masha and the Nutcracker to die. This does not ordinarily happen in "The Nutcracker"; the snowflake scene is usually intended to be beautiful and comforting, even in the Maurice Sendak - designed version of the ballet, and in the unusual Matthew Bourne version. Onstage during the "Snowflake Waltz", there is displayed a memorial - a giant skull on a pedestal. The chorus in the "Snowflake Waltz" is made up of the ghosts of children who have frozen to death.
