Olga Preobrazhenskaya as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Nikolai Legat as Prince Coqueluche. Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, c. 1900

A READER writes:

I recently attended a performance of The Nutcracker in a midsized city in the western U.S. The sets were spectacular, the music wonderful. But I was struck by the physical persona of most of the performers. Of course the men were in male costume and the women female, but the bodies appeared almost interchangeable. The men were small, not muscular, and many of the (flat-chested) women almost as large as the men. It appeared they could have lifted and carried the men as easily as the other way around. Neither did the choreography emphasize masculinity or femininity, but must have come from some nether region of movement that fit everyone and yet no one. Even the makeup had an androgynous, one-size-fits-all look to it. BEAUTY and GRACE as well as masculinity and femininity were missing. I’ve attended other performances in the past and never noticed this before. But, alas, that was before I took up with The Thinking Housewife…

Please follow and like us: