Houston Ballet's The Nutcracker

With a reference to Goethe on Byron

$40 purchased a ticket for this orchestra aisle seat!

Last night at the ballet — among a sold-out house at Wortham Center, as it appeared to us — we delighted in every facet of Stanton Welch’s presentation of The Nutcracker.

The music was exquisite; the costume witty and brilliantly colorful; the scenery scintillated; the dancing — what a company, not to mention the principals! — was joyous and celebratory; even the blocking was imaginative. Act I was devoted more to story; Act 2, more to variations and pas de deux. In Act I, there was such activity on the stage — swarms of child dancers dressed as busy bees or angels, elderly retainers pratfalling as boys barge about, the girls entranced by a puppet show, as the adults repaired to festive talk and drink, not to mention the great magician and the marvelous stage sleight-of-hand — that the eye was drawn from one scene to the next and then the next in quick succession. In Act II, the eye was permitted to rest and fix the gaze upon the principal dancers. Masterful direction!

So masterful that, as the (artificial) snow fell upon the Snow Queen, King and the Flurries, I noticed Clara’s uncovered calves and found myself thinking, golly, she must be cold. But, of course, I had fallen under the spell of the dream-like stage-world they had created! It was 70 degrees in the theater!

So attentive to detail were the creators of this dream that they threw upon the scrim at intermission this revolving cornucopia of festive images that I couldn’t help but capture, however, briefly.

This all brought to my mind, as I sat in the darkened theater, Goethe’s estimation of George, Lord Byron’s poetry, which applies to all the traditional arts, that is, art which is truly Art, and not what is today routinely passed off as Art, but which is, in fact, its negation. The distinction is in its purpose.

"It is a mark," says Goethe (Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahreit, 1876, iii. 125), "of true poetry, that, as a secular gospel, it knows how to free us from the earthly burdens which press upon us, by inward serenity, by outward charm.... The most lively, as well as the gravest works have the same end—to moderate both pleasure and pain through a happy mental representation."

[Quoted in Ernest Hartley Coleridge, The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry (1904)]

In fact, I felt materially and significantly better in spirit and outlook, having spent 2 hours of my time drinking in all of the joyous beauteousness created for our edification. That is what Art does, and why it has been treasured in the West for centuries.

And all this for only $40.00, which bought us an orchestra aisle seat. To cap it all off, we found free street parking two blocks away 45 minutes before curtain. This, in the 4th largest city in the United States — something not possible I believe in any of the top ten cities by population.

Watch Houston Ballet's Preview of The Nutcracker

Seats are still available for a few shows.