The best thing about this movie was the Orchestra and the incomparable Tchaikovsky score. A few of the dancers were literally amazing and virtually all of them were superb. The staginess of the production was very evocative of a live performance. However,the production as a whole detracted from the art we should have gotten. We ordered the DVD in hopes of showing it to our grandchildren, but the score, story and name alterations were so disconcerting that we decided to not introduce them to the Nutcracker this way. Of course, inserting a non-dancer into a ballet is like asking Rosanne Barr to sing at the Met. It is sure to elicit the exclamation: "What WERE you thinking?!?!" and it did. The major complaint about the production as a whole is hard to pin down, but the DVD was disappointing nonetheless. It just lacked the essence of great art. We simply were not "swept away." In general, some performances leave you feeling they were not up to snuff, but this one left us with the feeling of having been affronted. I would love to see it re-shot with a standard plot line, all dancers (no current heartthrobs), and more drive via the editing. One final whine: as the music was the best part, why don't they include the names of the musicians in the end-title roll? It wouldn't take up that much time.The violin solo was one of the high points of the entire performance, yet we got the names of all kinds of tradesmen whose output was indiscernible to us, but not the names of the musicians.
Review of The Nutcracker
