Word: hoffmann
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RALPH MANNHEIM'S fresh translation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker with its Maurice Sendak illustrations is much more than a glitzy sugar and spice Christmas yarn it's a welcome return to textual accuracy. This season the perpetually smiling pecan masher's overly familiar ballet incarnation is finally stripped away to reveal the genuine handmade article from Germany...
Sendak would have one believe that the most exciting aspect of this literary event is the story of how Kent Stowell of the Pacific Northwest Ballet convinced a reluctant Sendak to design a new production of the ballet. The familiar stage version is not Hoffmann at all, but rather a hybrid based largely upon Alexander Dumas's bland synthesis of Hoffmann's novella. Sendax became interested in the Nutcracker, when he learned that Stowell intended to crack the old Dumas chestnut with Hoffmann's stronger Nutcracker. The Seattle production was a great success. The triumphant ballet complements the publication...
Much is different about the new--though actually old--Nutcracker. Hoffmann's tale is at once a lavishly detailed children's story as fine as any Grim effort and a fascinating narrative reminiscent of a Pushkin tale...
...HOFFMANN'S UNDERSTATED tone and his sense of detail make his storytelling effective. When Fritz sees his gifts he takes "two or three rather spectacular jumps in the air." Later before Marie walks through a hall close door into the land of the dolls, Hoffmann notes that. "I don't think any of you children would have hesitated for a moment to follow the honest good natured nutcracker who never had a wicked thought in all his life." Jumps for instance are not high they are rather spectacular. And he gently addresses his readers...
...Hoffmann wants to be certain that we don't miss a thing. He accomplishes this with a restrained flourish. When Godfather Drosselmeir fixes the broken clock, "it came back to life and made everything happy by whirring and striking and singing merrily," Fritz receives a hobby horse gallops around the table a few times and "on dismounting he remarked that the beast was rather wild, but it didn't matter, he's break him in." As the Nutcracker's hussars battle the mice the dynamics of the struggle are special: the guns fire and "Marie saw sugar balls landing...