If you took the pages from every score of “The Nutcracker” ballet ever produced and laid them end to end, you wouldn’t be sitting here reading about it, especially not in December. You’d be very, very busy. “The Nutcracker” is arguably among the world’s most often-staged pieces of performance art, all the more remarkable in that it’s virtually ignored the other 11 months of the year. Alexander Dumas’ adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story, set to Peter Tchaikovsky’s monumental music from 1892, is a holiday icon, as much a part of the season as the Nativity itself.
John Nettles knows something about the Nutcracker phenomenon. Right now, he’s watching every nuance as City Ballet of San Diego rehearses its 13th annual entry, to be staged at downtown’s Spreckels Theatre Friday, Dec. 7 through Sunday, Dec. 9 and Dec. 14 to 16. And for him, those pointes and pirouettes are more than the nuances for which the ballet is known. They’re the cues that may mean the difference between success and mediocrity throughout the run.
Nettles is the conductor of the Pacific Beach-based City Ballet Orchestra, a little-known entity Nettles describes as fledgling at best ” but its 38 members are already accountable to more than one master.
“What we’re trying to do,” Nettles said, “is get a group together that is trained specifically to accompany dance performances, which is a different discipline. With most orchestras in this town, your best bet is finding an orchestra to collaborate with. There are orchestras and then there are dance companies. It’s kind of an economic reality that you don’t have a place that can do both.”
“The Nutcracker,” Nettles said, almost requires its own orchestral treatment, the same way certain Shakespeare companies perform the works of their central figure extremely close to the vest. The story, centering on a young German girl’s dream about a Nutcraker Prince and his battle with a seven-headed Mouse King, has been performed so often that all its elements are in danger of assuming lives of their own. That’s a predicament Nettles’ orchestra is designed to mitigate.
“With dance,” Nettles explained, “you’re dealing with a classical music repertoire, and you’re also dealing with theater. If you’re playing in a symphony orchestra, everything is all about creating a certain sound. If you’re using theater, you have to be aware of the motion on the stage. You have to understand how lighting works, how scene changes work; you have to be concerned to a certain extent with costume changes or how a certain dancer may do something differently from one day to the next.
“There’s more multitasking involved for the conductor and, consequently, for the players.”
Nettles’ areawide work reflects his specific expertise.He attneded the former Scripps Ranch-based United States International University, which in the early 1990s was an active training ground for performance art (City Ballet founding artistic director Steven Wistrich was among the faculty). A professional singing and dancing career ensued, followed by a seven-year tenure at area high schools. Nettles’ students would perform operatic sections with full orchestras ” “and that’s when I first started putting the elements of music, dance and theater together. I needed to teach musicians how to count like dancers, and I needed to teach dancers how to count like musicians.”
While the difference is apparent to Nettles, he’s hoping it’s all the same to us.
The Spreckels Theatre is at 121 Broadway downtown. Nutcracker tickets are $29 to $75; “Lunch with the Sugar Plum Fairy and Friends” is offered before both Saturday matinees at noon at the Bristol Hotel, $20 for adults and $15 for children. For more information, call (858) 272-8663 or visit www.cityballet.org.