Page 8 - The Holiday Issue San Diego Woman Magazine

CALIFORNIA BALLET

San Diego’s Most Spectacular Production of The Nutcracker

By Bettie B. Youngs, Ph.D., Ed.D.

S A CHILD GROWING UP IN A
Asmall town in the Midwest, a nutcrack-
er was the name of the tool for cracking nut
shells and lay atop the wooden bowl in the
middle of the table filled with the season’s
assortment of nuts.
At the time, I’d not heard of E.T.A. Hoff-
CALIFORNIA BALLET mann’s book, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse

King;” it was not on school’s reading list, nor
was it among the stories our parents told or
read to us at bedtime.
While there was horse riding, roller
rinks, and skating rinks, there wasn’t a ballet
school in the county. There were lessons for
learning to ride a horse—English or Western,
and lessons to play the piano or any musical
instrument imagined, but not once did I hear
of a fellow classmate selecting a Tchaikovsky
musical score as a composition to perform in a
school competition. And, never did I ever hear
of a classmate hoping to convince his or her
parents to use the family car to drive a couple
of hundred miles in the snow (because The
Nutcracker is a Christmas themed ballet) to
Minneapolis or Chicago to see a performance
of The Nutcracker.
We sometimes forget that in smaller
towns across America, attending a Ballet
performance isn’t a standard experience. Nor
do all Metropolitan areas have a Ballet Com-
pany. Likewise, an inadequate venue or lack
of financial support means that is it unlikely
that a traveling Ballet troupe will be coming to
a town near you. Even that has its problems:
A couple of years ago a good friend of mine
drove to a nearby City to see a visiting Mos-
cow Ballet that didn’t show. When the tem-
perature dropped to 30 degrees below zero the
troupe couldn’t start their tour bus, so had to
cancel a few city dates. As the press reported,
“After their sugar plums have defrosted, they
will be back on the road again.”

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