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NUTCRACKER BY THE and costumes for The Metropolitan Opera and American Ballet Theatre, as well as other top opera and ballet companies. "The two of us discussed at great length what this new Nutcracker should be," Perdziola says. "We were not interested in doing anything edgy or retro." Instead, the most radical change? The pair elected to make The Nutcracker even more classic. The new production moves back 15 years, with Nissinen and Perdziola placing the ballet in southern Germany in the 1820s, a time when the Regency style prevailed in the European decorative arts and fashion. Popularized in France by Napoleon I, the neoclassical revival embodied a taste for clean-lined simplicity, which Nissinen wanted reflected in his danc- ers' costumes. "The dresses are not so voluminous, but actually show the elegance of the dancer's bodies better," he explains. "[Perdziola] is incredi- bly detail-oriented. He understood when I said classic—it has to feel like a classic." In addition to studying the time period, the designer took his cues from ballet itself. "I see a direct marriage between the ballet world and design," Perdziola says. "The physical sensitivity to the line of a leg, an arm, the tilt of a head, is equivalent to the sensitivity involved in getting a color right, in finding the right net that can float, in perfecting the cut of a tunic." Heightchew, manager of costumes and wardrobe. "In addition to making the tutus and tunics and skirts, the Sugar Plums' tutus and the Dew Drop costumes each have 3,500 to 4,000 jewels. Multiply that by three costumes [one for each dancer assigned to every role], and there's a lot of work to be done," he says. To meet deadlines, the Ballet hired 15 artisan shops, from costume makers in Ontario to dyers in New York to a milliner in Kentucky. The bulk of the work, though, was done by the Ballet's own staff. P The costumes were particularly labor-intensive. The larger stones on the Snow Queen's bodice and tutu, for example, were meticulously sewn on by hand. Not to mention the painting of fabric and the soldering of tiaras. This couture-like decorative work will be evident from the front row to the last, says Heightchew. "Each layer where another color is added in fabric or painting or jewels—it adds a different visual element. You may not be able to pick out [the extra detail] individually, but you're aware of it in the depth in the costumes." For the set design, Nissinen and Perdziola also took their cues from the Empire style, which featured ornate details, imposing columns, and lavish finishes. But for set changes, the pair turned to the modern and cinematic. They crafted a series of reveals where scenes appear to telescope out of one another. The ballet opens in the town square with Drosselmeier, imagined here as a theater impresario, presenting a performance in his Children's Theatre. "We progress from the small-town scene into the living room Christmas Eve party all in shades of beige, brown, tan, muted," Perdziola explains. "When the tree grows we go into color. It's a Wizard of Oz trick," he says, referring to the classic movie's pre-cyclone black and white, and post- cyclone landing in Technicolor Oz. For the iris effect, the Ballet's technical staff pulled off an engineering feat, says Benjamin Phillips, Boston Ballet's production manager and technical director. "To make three pieces of scen- ery move at once, we built rigging and tracking systems on monstrous steel cages," he says. But during the performance they're manipulated by just one stagehand pulling a rope. "I've never seen it before," Phillips says. "It was very much an original idea." 120 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM erdziola designed the costumes for each of The Nutcracker's 182 roles—creating 40 detailed sketches and a host of small pencil sketches for everything from the lushly attired Drosselmeier, Clara's guardian; to the elaborately jeweled Dew Drop; to the colorfully coordi- nated clowns, the Harlequin and the polichinelles. It was an 11-month-long endeavor, says Charles 40,000-square-foot building in Newburyport. "Normally we build shows that can travel," he explains. "This was custom made for the Boston Opera House. It's the biggest show we've built in 12 years." It may also be the most intoxicating. And fun. In the living room battle scene, the Mouse King leads the charge with a martini pick, an olive, and a lime wedge, while his mouse infantry holds the front with an artillery of cherries and lime slices—a wink at the adults in the audience. Largely though, he says, his own interpretation of the ballet stems from Clara's impressions of her parents' Christmas party just as she drifts off to sleep. "It's sort of her memories from that night, and she just takes a wild ride," he explains. As it will be for the young girls playing Clara. After a week of nail-biting suspense, four girls—Eliza French, Calissa Grady, Emily Hoff, and Chelsea Perry—learn they will be working on the role of Clara. For eight weeks the girls maintain an intense rehearsal sched- ule of up to 12 hours each week (balanced with school, of course), and as opening night approaches they might rehearse as many as 26 hours in one week. Being chosen for Clara is often the nod that leads the young balleri- nas to become principal dancers. Several dancers who have once performed the role with Boston Ballet have gone on to become principal dancers in other ballet companies such as The Royal Ballet in London. For 14-year-old Chelsea Perry of Walpole, this will be her second time as Clara. It's a part her mother, Lisa, says Perry has coveted since age four, when she saw Boston Ballet's own Nutcracker for the first time. "Before the first act was over she jumped in my lap and said, 'I want to be Clara,'" Lisa recalls. She adds that it feels surreal to see her daughter performing, but Perry discusses the experience like a ballet veteran. She lives, she says, for the first step on stage. "It's the moment that you let go and just become the part, and you live in her world instead of living in your own," she says. And it is through Clara's dream—and Nissinen's artistic vision—that we are all transported into the Ballet's magical realm and the making of ballet history. The Nutcracker runs November 23 through December 30. For tickets, call 617- 695-6955; bostonballet.org BC For the ballet's iconic, towering tree, Nissinen instructed Perdziola to go big. "I said to the designer that what I want is a Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree illusion," Nissinen recalls. The result is a tree that "grows" to more than 42 feet tall and glimmers in fiber-optic light. The majority of the scenery was constructed over six months at Mystic Scenic Studios in Norwood, while many of the props were built at NUMBERS ATTENDEES EXPECTED THIS YEAR: More than 90,000 DANCERS: More than 300 NEW COSTUMES: 182 on stage; approximately 350 created for multiple casts JEWELS AND SETTINGS USED IN COSTUMES: 250,000 in dozens of colors. Each Sugar Plum fairy and Dew Drop has more than 3,600 on her tutu and bodice YARDS OF TULLE: 3,600-plus HEIGHT OF CHRISTMAS TREE: 42 feet, 6 inches tall 2012 PERFORMANCES: 43 LIMITED-EDITION PRINTS AVAILABLE: 800; this year's chosen sketches are of Mother Ginger and the polichinelles the Ballet's own