Because as cheesy and relatively plotless as it is, the Nutcracker is just a bundle of fun! And the music is really amazing, even if they do overuse it shamelessly on Hallmark channel. So here, enjoy these illustrations based on The Nutcracker Suite!
So the Miniature Overture plays while the curtain is down, so it's not associated with any scene. I thought to myself, well hey! The beginning of the story is at a Christmas party, so why not have the Miniature Overture be Clara decorating the house for the party?
So this here is the Marche, where the kids dance around and enjoy their presents. The little fellow there is Fritz, and I hope you enjoy the owl-topped Grandfather Clock in the background!
The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Faerie. In a lot of productions, Clara takes on the role of the Sugar Plum Faerie and dances all her dances, so I drew Clara in a pimped out little tutu. I tried to draw her doing a step I remember from the ballet, where she taps one ankle with her other foot.
Here in one shot (because I'm lazy) we have the Trepak, Coffee, and Tea all together. I like the Trepak costumes the best (not so proud of the Coffee ones :P), but I like the Tea girl the best out of all the characters in this shot. She's got energy!
And the cutsey Dance of the Mirlitons, or Reed Pipes! I like this one because it was my first solo at orchestra, haha! Anyhoo, they're supposed to be shepherds. I don't know of the colors come through very well, but I made the main color for them be sunny yellow.
Waltz of the Flowers! From top left going onwards, we have a Rose, a Daisy, a Tulip, and a Morning Glory! Waltz of the Flowers is my favorite movement of the suite (though if 'Sugar Plum Faerie and her Cavalier' was in the suite, THAT would be my favorite movement), it's so pretty and bouncy!
Oh yeah, Tchaikovsky! We've been on kind of a ballet jones for mysterious reasons. ;)
Mostly because we watched Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev, and saw the link to a production of Swan Lake. I liked the music, but I couldn't remember if I'd ever watched it all the way through!
So we watched it. By the way, this mysterious 'we' refers to me and my sister.
One of the things I liked about Romeo and Juliet was that not too much time was spent on dances that did nothing for the plot. There were a few, like at the ball, or in the town square, but most of the time, the plot was very well paced. While I really enjoyed Swan Lake, I have to say that dang. About three quarters of it was just people dancing around and not doing much for the plot.
But hey! This is ballet, and when you go to see a ballet, you want... well, ballet. I'm not a huge dance person myself, so maybe that explains why I got a bit bored during the loooooooooooong stretches that were random dances.
My other issue with this otherwise totally awesome and heartbreaking ballet is pretty minor, but still. So we all know the famous Waltz, right? Well, I was expecting it to play during the ball where Odile is magically disguised as Odette! The Waltz is an amazing piece of music. It's romantic and elegant, but there are moments of great tension and even distress too. So fitting for a scene in which the prince thinks he's confessing his love to his princess, but is actually being tricked! So that's where I thought it was used.
Turns out, it's actually used in Act 1, at Prince Siegfried's birthday party. A scene that isn't really that tense or romantic or any of that juicy stuff. But like I said, that's probably just me. :)
So anyway, the plot is simple. On the night of his birthday, Prince Siegfried is out hunting in the forest and comes across a beautiful swan, who turns into a mournful young woman. This woman is Princess Odette, who was turned into a swan, along with all her friends, by a wicked sorcerer named Rothbart. The only way for the curse to be broken is for her true love to confess their love to her. Of course, she and Siegfried fall in love, and he invites her to a grand ball to celebrate their love. At his ball, he'll ask her to marry him. Rothbart gets wind of this (because he has the lake bugged?) and uses magic to disguise his daughter Odile as Odette. At the ball, Siegfried confesses his love to Odile, and realizes his mistake when it's too late. He rushes to the lake, where he and Odette dance for the last time. Things end with Odette drowning herself in the lake, and Siegfried joining her in death- since I guess sacrificing their lives together is the only way to free the rest of the swans from the curse. Or just because everything must end in suicide with ballet.
So I guess I can see why they had to pad it out with a LOT of dances, but I like it. It's a simple, but heart-wrendingly tragic story.
And the music. Holy Shnikes the music! I mentioned the awesome Waltz, but there's also the lively Coda (to which Odile does her famous spin-ny thing!), the Dance of the Little Swans, and my personal favorite- the music that plays over the finale!
The Verdict: A
Romeo and Juliet is still my favorite ballet, but this one is a very close second! The plot may be simple and stretched out with additional dances, but it packs a hefty emotional punch. The music is amazing, and takes a pretty good story and makes it a magnificent story.
Warning: Ranting Lies Herein! Ranting of the good sort, not angry ranting though. :)
Okay, so we're playing this, and I'm really excited, because I've been wanting to play it for a while! What a coincidence!
So this piece actually a telling of the Romeo and Juliet story in and of itself, telling the story with music, rather than words. Sometimes I actually prefer listening to this to reading the play, because the sheer emotional scale of the music is overpowering to me. If you close your eyes, you feel absolutely enveloped in the music, and it goes through so many different emotions! There is a sense of nervous tension almost ever present (even during the famous love theme), and explosive anger and conflict. And there is, I think, a very palpable feeling of helplessness present at certain spots too. Starting around the 15:30 minute mark in the video, the anxious tone grows and grows, until the previously quiet and peaceful, but now soaring and lush love theme returns. This should be a joyful moment, but something in the music sends the message that something is very wrong. The immense timpani rolls make it feel like you're helplessly afloat on a stormy sea.
Of course, I have a rep for being very melodramatic, but hey! This is some of the most emotional music in the world, so I'm in my element here!
Anyway, we've talked about the emotional aspects, so now howabout more on the technical side. This piece has very good parts for pretty much everyone in the orchestra. The brass are totally righteous and can show off really well, the bassoon part actually, is really neato too! The part for violin sounds like so much work, it's very virtuosic. I mean, just listen to the more strife-y parts of the music, and you'll find yourself wondering how they're doing that! The Flute/Piccolo parts are considerably easier, but definitely not easy. There's a lot of coming in on the right beat, and runs fer dayz. But really, it's so much fun to play. The Flute/Piccolo parts are so beautiful (yeah, even the Piccolo gets in on the lovey dovey action!) and I find myself getting totally lost in the music. And that, my friends, is my favorite thing about Orchestra! Well, getting lost in the music, and the occasional free cake when the conductor's birthday lands on a rehearsal night. ;)
Just kidding, stay frosty, my friends!
Music actually starts around 2:00. :)
Next Up: La Mer: From Dawn to Midday on the Sea by Claude Debussy
Tchaikovsky never ceases to amaze me with his ability to create gorgeous melodies of varying moods and texture. They all seem to have a unifying 'Tchaikovsky-ness' that I can't quite put my finger on.
This song is from an opera that he scored called Eugene Onegin. The opera is based on a story by the Russian poet, Alexandre Pushkin (who's work also inspired another work of classical music that I really love). Pushkin's story involves a man who spurs the romantic advances of a very kind and all around wonderful woman, and of course he later regrets it, tragic Russian-ness, and so forth. I don't know how good the opera is, but this Waltz from the beginning of Act II is a masterpiece in and of itself. The main theme is very sweeping and romantic, played at a moderate tempo with lots of bounce. But there is also a lot of strife present in the music, reflecting the turbulence in the story.
