NUTCRACKER (Battle Scene - 1995 Ballet Arizona/Clifford)

Here is the "Battle Scene" from my NUTCRACKER which I based closely on Marius Petipa's 1892 original production notes; which the music director of my Los Angeles Ballet secretly photographed and smuggled out of Russia in 1978 for my original Los Angeles Ballet production. The esteemed dance critic of the NY Times, NY Post, and London Times, Clive Barnes, gave my Los Angeles Ballet production a rave calling it, "One of the most lavish in the country," and, "A child's dream of Christmas." This video is from a Ballet Arizona Matinee performance in Tucson, and doesn't use my Los Angeles Ballet's more opulent sets or costumes. Unfortunately no film of that exists. I added the character of the "Snow Queen," as she doesn't appear in the Petipa notes. Other than that, this has all the characters Petipa wanted, (Cookie soldiers as well as the standard tin soldiers), and scene changes where they were supposed to happen in the score. In this performance several things go wrong, such as set changes being late (the tree going up and snow drop coming down), and the little Prince being a bit off the music on some of his port de bras, mainly because this was a local cast and different theater/crew from the Phoenix shows which had more rehearsal time.