{"id":9333,"date":"2023-12-20T07:29:42","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T12:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/how-the-nutcracker-has-been-reimagined-for-better-and-worse\/20\/12\/2023\/"},"modified":"2023-12-20T07:29:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T12:29:42","slug":"how-the-nutcracker-has-been-reimagined-for-better-and-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/how-the-nutcracker-has-been-reimagined-for-better-and-worse\/20\/12\/2023\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018The Nutcracker\u2019 Has Been Reimagined, for Better and Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d is a cherished Holiday staple \u2014 one that, for every traditional treatment, inspires a left-field twist toward the contemporary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There\u2019s a grain of truth in Lisa Simpson\u2019s comment that everybody does \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u5uJsUa4G84&amp;ab_channel=zak2ninja\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">because you don\u2019t have to pay for the music rights<\/a>.\u201d As the critic Roslyn Sulcas once <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/03\/arts\/dance\/the-nutcracker-in-london-four-different-versions.html\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">wrote in The New York Times<\/a>, \u201cEven less-than-great versions of the ballet exercise a kind of magic through Tchaikovsky\u2019s score, which offers the same infinite potential for choreography as the texts of great plays do for staging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That potential, however, can be double-edged. Here are five instances in which light tweaks and heavy rewrites have reframed \u2014 and occasionally ruined \u2014 Tchaikovsky\u2019s famous music.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-kypbrf eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-35a62069\">Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn: \u2018The Nutcracker Suite\u2019<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Spotify\" class=\"css-9whsf3\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/6QHkNHDNvVkR3G8CDvF1Ug\" width=\"300px\" height=\"380px\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Perhaps the most classic update of Tchaikovsky\u2019s score, the Ellington-Strayhorn \u201cNutcracker\u201d has inspired productions as different as Donald Byrd\u2019s \u201cThe Harlem Nutcracker\u201d and David Bintley\u2019s \u201cThe Nutcracker Sweeties.\u201d Its release, in 1960, also suggested an interesting switch in power dynamics between arranger and arranged: The original cover art gave Ellington, Strayhorn and Tchaikovsky the same billing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOverture\u201d sets the tone, with a wandering double bass that leads softly into classic Ellington orchestrations. But that softness is quickly dispelled by the high woodwind chirps of \u201cToot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes),\u201d and there are flashes of Stravinsky harshness in the \u201cMarch,\u201d renamed the \u201cPeanut Brittle Brigade,\u201d which begins with dissonant stacks of harmony that could be straight from \u201cA Soldier\u2019s Tale.\u201d Most powerful is the amount of textural space Ellington and Strayhorn afford; in the sparse, boozy \u201cSugar Rum Cherry\u201d and the light yet expressive \u201cArabesque Cookie Arabian Dance),\u201d less is definitely more.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-kypbrf eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-66d58091\">\u2018The Hip Hop Nutcracker\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some \u201cNutcracker\u201d scores are reimagined; others are remixed. But \u201cThe Hip Hop Nutcracker,\u201d a 2014 production by Jennifer Weber that has become a touring staple in the United States, is a remix in the fullest sense. Clara \u2014 here, Maria-Clara \u2014 goes on a quest to bring her parents back together, accompanied by a troupe of break dancers. The score is remixed onstage by a D.J. and an electric violinist. As in all revisions of \u201cThe Nutcracker,\u201d the key is for the score to act like a double mirror: The act of shining fresh light on the original score should rebound to energize the new. The brittle electronic beats create solid new foundations for improvised flourishes and ensemble numbers alike.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-kypbrf eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-13e2caef\">Brian Setzer Orchestra: \u2018The Nutcracker Suite\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Brian Setzer\u2019s career has been defined by a revivalist energy. First, his rockabilly group Stray Cats looked back to the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll of the 1950s through the eyes of the 1980s. After the group split, he founded the Brian Setzer Orchestra, a boogie-woogie, jump blues band straddling originals and jazzed-up covers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Nutcracker Suite,\u201d originally arranged for Les Brown and his Band of Renown by Frank Comstock, wasn\u2019t the only time that the Brian Setzer Orchestra dabbled in classical rearrangements. In the 2007 album \u201cWolfgang\u2019s Big Night Out,\u201d Beethoven\u2019s \u201cF\u00fcr Elise\u201d became the Django Reinhardt pastiche \u201cFor Lisa,\u201d and Johann Strauss II\u2019s \u201cThe Blue Danube\u201d became the bluesy swing chart \u201cSome River in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An unlikely source brought the group\u2019s take on Tchaikovsky into holiday tradition: Buddy, in the movie \u201cElf.\u201d As the lights dim in Gimbels, the store that Buddy (Will Ferrell), has tasked himself with redecorating overnight, the Brian Setzer Orchestra trumpets strike up, playing the fanfare call from \u201cMarch of the Toy Soldiers.\u201d But what follows is not the impish, pizzicato response that usually accompanies the toys\u2019 jolting movements: A drum kit crashes in, and snarling, swinging saxophones accompany Buddy\u2019s commando rolls across the aisle behind a security guard. The whole arrangement pits clipped precision against swirling chaos.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-kypbrf eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-4b492813\">Drew McOnie and Cassie Kinoshi: \u2018Nutcracker\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cassie Kinoshi, a composer and saxophonist associated with London\u2019s jazz scene, has already had a fruitful foray into dance, collaborating with the group BalletBoyz alongside her work for theater, film and orchestra. Now she has reimagined Tchaikovsky\u2019s score for Drew McOnie\u2019s \u201cNutcracker\u201d at the Tuff Nut Jazz Club, a pop-up speakeasy hidden underneath the Southbank Center in London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like Strayhorn and Comstock\u2019s arrangements before, Kinoshi\u2019s score is based in jazz. But where the others have the golden dazzle of that full big-band sound, her music is much more contained, for a versatile four-piece group nestled in the corner of the performance space. Led by the bass player Rio Kai, the quartet lovingly dismantles Tchaikovsky\u2019s music and brings in modern energy, switching effortlessly between chilled vamps and off-kilter meters. Moments of sugary sweetness \u2014 in a nice touch, the players are dressed in pajamas \u2014 add yet more sparkle to the heavily sequined production, for which the phrase \u201ccamp as Christmas\u201d was surely coined.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><h2 class=\"css-kypbrf eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-28b4936d\">\u2018The Nutcracker in 3D\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Here is a warning that new takes on \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d can go too far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Set in 1920s Vienna, Andrei Konchalovsky\u2019s deeply strange film, from 2010, presents the classic story as a Nazi allegory few, if anyone, saw coming. The combination of a tedious plot, poor acting, some howling digital effects and not infrequent references to the Holocaust made this largely nondancing \u201cNutcracker\u201d an expensive Christmas turkey, costing $90 million to make but bringing in only $20 million at the box office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among the worst elements of \u201cThe Nutcracker in 3D\u201d is the music, which inexplicably gains lyrics by Tim Rice. And so \u201cThe Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy\u201d becomes \u201cIt\u2019s All Relative,\u201d a song for the Einstein-like Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane) packed full of banal sentiments like \u201cWho\u2019s to say what\/Is or is not\/Who writes your plot?\/You do!\u201d Later, \u201cDance of the Reed Flutes\u201d becomes a sleazy, vaudevillian show tune sung by an anthropomorphic Rat King to his loyal subjects, a group of baying rodents dressed like SS officers. And, as if ruining \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d weren\u2019t enough, the movie then plunders from the second movement of Tchaikovsky\u2019s Fifth Symphony, mapping kitschy lyrics for the chronically misunderstood child Mary (Elle Fanning) onto one of the composer\u2019s most popular tunes. It\u2019s grotesque.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/20\/arts\/music\/nutcracker-reimagined-better-and-worse.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&ldquo;The Nutcracker&rdquo; is a cherished Holiday staple &mdash; one that, for every traditional treatment, inspires a left-field twist toward the contemporary. There&rsquo;s<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/how-the-nutcracker-has-been-reimagined-for-better-and-worse\/20\/12\/2023\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"fifu_video_url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u5uJsUa4G84","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}