ArtsWatch

Yesterday, on New Year's Eve day, I saw the last Pennsylvania Ballet Nutcracker of the season. It's been billed as a new production, though it didn't look like much of a departure from the previous, two-decade-old version. The tickets we were sold gave us only a partial view of the stage (even though there were hundreds of empty, better seats in the Academy), so it's hard to say anything about Peter Horne's sets. Judanna Lynn's costumes, however, were spectacularly detailed.
The orchestra remains a weak spot in the production. The conducting by Salvatore Scarpa was dull, and some of the playing careless. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was particularly disturbing. After the short string introduction, the celesta entered - with the theme from The Pink Panther. Not just once, but twice. It's the sort of gag that's funny in rehearsal. In performance it sounds not merely irreverent, but almost contemptuous of the composer.
Not as bad - though also amateurish - were the very last bars of the entire ballet. Instead of the rising, slow arpeggio Tchaikovsky wrote, the orchestra played a few bars from Auld Lang Syne.
Witty? Creative? Close. But no cigar.