Joffrey's 'Nutcracker' Is a Warm Holiday Treat

Dr. Drosselmeyer, Brian McSween, shows off the titular toy in the Joffrey Ballet's production. (By K Atherine Frey -- The Washington Post)

Aside from the seasonal suitability of "The Nutcracker," which the Joffrey Ballet opened Wednesday at the Kennedy Center Opera House, something else felt cosmically right about the performance. The Joffrey, after all, is the troupe that celebrated film director Robert Altman enshrined three years ago in "The Company," and watching the ensemble just days after Altman's death brought to mind the qualities that clearly impressed the director in his penultimate film: youthfulness, candor and resiliency.

What Altman, to whom the Joffrey dedicated opening night, discovered through his camera would appear to be honest attributes. More than any other ballet company, the Joffrey has always seemed to be about youth and camaraderie. The dancers' frank openness and guileless warmth spread across the footlights. There appear to be no suffering, hollow-cheeked divas in this company, but there are plenty of sweet soubrettes.

That sense of easy gaiety gives "The Nutcracker" an added dimension of truth, a quality one doesn't always find in this timeworn ballet of idealized childhood. The Joffrey version reframes the ballet, moving it from Germany to America in the mid-19th century, complete with whimsical antique toys for the children that dance in the production and luxurious, sweeping antebellum gowns for the ladies. It is an elegantly unified production, with tastefully executed vintage touches, and great care taken with Tchaikovsky's beloved score. But it is the dancers' naturalness of feeling that gives this "Nutcracker" extra appeal.

The first act's Christmas Eve party is a picture of family health, with lots of well-organized little tykes bouncing around. In the key roles of young Clara and her roguish brother Fritz, Joffrey members Jennifer Goodman and Calvin Kitten blend in seamlessly with the children. Kitten, as dependable as he is eternally boyish, did triple duty Wednesday: He reappeared as the Snow Prince in the Land of Snow, and danced in the Tea From China pas de deux in Act II.

The Snow scene is one of the ballet's high points, with its clusters of ballerina-snowflakes skimming about like pools of light. Victoria Jaiani was a refined, gossamer Snow Queen, adding depth to a role that is often merely a technical showpiece; the stately Fabrice Calmels was her King.

Maia Wilkins delivered the requisite Sugar Plum Fairy package and then some -- she was delicate, classically pure and never dropped her smile, even when whipping off an array of turns with gyroscopic certainty. As the Nutcracker Prince, Willy Shives balanced the affections of both dewy Clara and Madame Sugar Plum, doting on each with chaste sincerity.

The late Robert Joffrey, who conceived this production, modeled its setting and decor on his own collection of antiques. But he smartly left much of the dancing alone -- that is, he kept it more or less true to the Marius Petipa choreography from the 1890s (with the exception of Artistic Director Gerald Arpino's contributions for the Snowflakes and the Waltz of the Flowers).

True to its heritage, this "Nutcracker" revels in old-fashioned virtues -- chivalry, etiquette -- and in genuine Russian style, the tricked-up folk dances that constitute the second act's divertissements are sentimental, even nostalgic. A couple of them recall other well-known Russian ballets: Chocolate From Spain bears echoes of "Don Quixote"; Coffee From Arabia, whose ballerina floated with a long, billowing scarf, harkens to the scarf-trailing specter in "La Bayadere." The Snow Queen even brought the heroine of "Swan Lake" fleetingly to mind.

These deliberate connections that Joffrey makes to other classics aren't gratuitous, however; they are part of an approach that recognizes this ballet's parentage and wants to keep close to the family. And there's no better ballet than "The Nutcracker" in which to flaunt your respect for family values. This version brings holiday harmony tantalizingly close -- if only for a couple hours.

Performances continue through Sunday.