The Magic of Dancing Snowflakes
On The Nutcracker ballet
As I write this, a brilliant white blanket—fine and grainy yet powdery, pristine and freezing cold—covers the outdoors. It’s the first substantial snow of autumn, hitting after Thanksgiving has passed and December begins, as the run-up to Christmas bursts into full flower. I think we tolerate the practical inconveniences of this snow precisely because of its timing: after all, the allure of a white Christmas still holds a certain charm, even if it means we must drag out winter gear, heavy boots, snow removal apparatus, and the will to muscle through and move the stuff if we are to go anywhere. So this is a fitting opportunity to muse upon one of my favorite parts of Yuletide preparation, a sparkling sugarplum to crown the secular celebration, if you will: the ballet of The Nutcracker.
The ballet is a garlanded fairy tale based on an 1816 story. A young girl, Clara, attends a Christmas Eve party at her house. Her mysterious godfather Drosselmeyer arrives and gives her a beautiful nutcracker prince doll. Clara’s mischievous brother breaks it, but all is well—Drosselmeyer fixes it and entrances the party children with magic tricks and dancing dolls. Later that evening, Clara returns to the Christmas tree, which grows to an unimaginable height, and she embarks upon an adventure, or a dream. Clara’s nutcracker, now grown life-size, fights a monstrous mouse king and defeats him with Clara’s help (she usually throws a slipper at the mouse king at a pivotal moment, distracting him and enabling the nutcracker to kill him). Then the nutcracker transforms into a real prince, who takes Clara away to celebrate in his land, the Land of the Sweets, where all manner of lively and varied candies whirl and perform for them.
Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky wrote the now-familiar music in 1892, and the score makes the dance. Two pieces, particularly, stand out to me as I think about snow.
As a young dancer in several productions of the ballet, I always loved the Waltz of the Snowflakes. It’s the transition from the first act to the second, after the defeat of the mouse king and the nutcracker’s transformation, when the prince escorts Clara through a dark, glittering wood, and the Snow Queen and her cavalier and a flurry—ahem—of snowflakes spin and twirl for her. The woodwinds, strings, and a small choir evoke first flakes, and then gradually their music escalates into a snow storm. The productions I saw and participated in had snow fall on stage during the dance, white, unmeltable slivers fluttering through the blue light and whirling dancers. Maybe I just didn’t see real snow enough in the lower Midwest climes where we lived, but the falling white and the lovely coordination of the dancers mesmerized me with a singular beauty. I wanted to live in those woods with that snow. (You can watch and listen to one lovely version of Waltz of the Snowflakes here.)
Real snow is beautiful, of course. We see it and experience it on our mountain here. It’s one of the mysteries of the natural world that brutal conditions—freezing air; gray, wet and somber clouds; the absence of direct sunlight—are necessary for the wonder that is snow. It is unspeakably lovely. It can also be horrifically dangerous. Anyone who’s driven in white-out conditions knows this. Actually, anyone who’s been outside in one or several upper Midwest or northern winters knows this. Tchaikovsky knew this, too, living in the cold, cold tundra of Russia, and you can hear his visceral understanding of snow’s sinister sublimity in his Dance of the Snowflakes.
But unlike in a choreographed ballet that has an end, we get tired of what can seem like unending winter. Five or six months of cold and earthly barrenness can leave us feeling rather like the residents of Narnia near the end of their one hundred year winter, despondent and a little heartsick, like we’ll never see green again. By April or earlier, we long for color and for warmth. By then, the pristine snow cover seems suffocating, not serene. And so the antidote to snow is flowers. This is the case in life and, not coincidentally, in The Nutcracker. Though the snowflakes in the ballet are not villains, they convey an ominous air, a soft and subtle warning. If unleashed, they seem to warn, we will not comfort you. Some productions of the ballet show this, their choreography more explicitly disconcerting Clara, confusing her in a cloud of swirling white.
Not surprisingly, then, the other great chorus movement in The Nutcracker besides the Waltz of the Snowflakes is the even better known Waltz of the Flowers. The cold has transformed into warmth in the Land of the Sweets, an icy passage into a joyful, vibrant gala. As much as I love the snowflakes, I love the flowers just as much. That they resemble each other in delicacy, and in grace, is no accident. Both show us natural beauty, one kind frozen and another fertile, both outside of our control. Garrulous and gorgeous, snowflakes and flowers entrance us.
Since I love The Nutcracker, I love both dances. But in December, I prefer the snow, the light and the darkness combined. December snow is not April snow, and for this I am grateful. I can still cherish the light and ethereal movement of snowflakes outside my window as we prepare our house for coming celebrations. I can appreciate the austere and quiet outdoors sinking toward the year’s darkest day. I can watch a score of deliberate, airy snowflake dancers twirling in a faded light, seemingly effortlessly, creating and part of a whirling storm.
This post originally appeared in the December 2, 2015 edition of the Pipestone County Star. It has been lightly edited.