nut crunchers

Well, that is what Braden calls them.. I guess he thinks cracking and crunching are one in the same...maybe they are...

Ovation TV ran 6 different Nutcracker Ballets every night for a week last week. I watch ALL 6... every last second of each one.

From 1984-1986 I felt like I spent the better part of my life, listening, watching, practicing and performing in the Nutcracker in Maine. I went to see a professional production in Boston too, which is where I bought my OWN Nutcracker. I even bought vintage copies of the two translated versions of the story a few years ago.
I have the score memorized, as well as the choreography to go with it. So watching the different Nutcrackers (besides the ones I was in and the one with Mikhail Baryshnikov) was a research project of sorts... just to see what else is out there.

My mom passed away in 1988... but it was in January, so pretty much she passed in 1997 which means only one year had gone by since our last production of the Ballet.
After she died, there was no more Nutcracker.

2002 was the first time I saw the show since those days in Maine. While sitting there in a darkened theater next to Mason I started to cry uncontrollably when the orchestra began to play.
I had no idea what was wrong with me until my dad shared a similar story. He said 3 or 4 years after mom died, he was in the mall at Christmastime... when all of a sudden one of the stores was playing some of the music from the show... He said he started to feel faint and became so emotional that he had to leave the store.

I thought of both those stories as I watched the ballets on TV. The music of the production fills my soul with peace and melancholy and I wondered what mom would have thought of all the modern interpretations that were being shown.