It doesn’t feel like Christmas in Houston without the Nutcracker.
The Houston Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker opened Friday night at the Wortham Theater, the fifth year for Stanton Welch’s vision of the Tchaikovsky classic.
A little Nutcracker trivia for you: while writing the score, commissioned by the Director of Imperial Theaters in Czarist Russia in spring of 1891, the composer had to take a break to set sail for America. Tchaikovsky was the opening night performer of Carnegie Hall Theater in New York City on May 5, 1891! He thought it “"unusually impressive and grand.”
With visions of Sugar Plum Fairies dancing in his head Tchaikovsky returned to Russia to complete the composition, which met mixed reviews after its first performance, one critic calling it “insipid.”
Houston calls it one of our grandest Christmas traditions and takes spectacular to a new level of awe.
photo: Getty Images (dancers in photo are not with the Houston Ballet)