Then the Christmas tree refused to grow. There was supposed to be an Alice in Wonderland type effect, with Clara shrinking to the same size as the mice and toy soldiers. But the tree refused to move. Oh well, I doubt any of that audience would notice.
Then we moved into the fight between the soldiers and the mice. It was flowing nicely. Carl and Joseph were making a real production of the fight between the Mouse King and Nutcracker. And then one of the children, trying to “die” theatrically, tripped and fell heavily. The young boy was in tears as he marched from the stage at the end of the scene. I managed to give him a cuddle and compliment him on staying in character until he was off stage before he was led away for attention by one of the small army of stage mothers. Hopefully he would be ready to come back for the final scene. I made a note to use what happened as a warning to the others.
The performance seemed to be going well. The mass en pointe dances went without a hitch. The Sweet dances all went well, and the lighting technicians were even able to follow Carl at his most dynamic. Finally the rehearsal came to an end. We even got some applause from the audience. Most of it was from family of the cast who had been invited in to watch. The politicians and media representatives were embarrassed into giving nominal polite applause. Not like the princess. She was almost bouncing in her seat. It was probably only Lady Ulrike’s heavy hand that was holding her in place. The cast bowed and curtseyed to the audience before the curtain closed for the last time. I quickly got changed from my costume so I could go out and talk to politicians and media.
* * *
Friday morning. The end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end, I didn’t know which it was going to be. Tonight we put on our premiere performance, according to Mary Simpson, to a full house. The future of my ballet company could live or die on tonight’s performance.
Everybody who had any claim to being anybody, who wasn’t otherwise detained or required for military service, was going to be there. Half of the blue bloods from Magdeburg had already invaded Grantville. Most were staying in the houses of friends and acquaintances who had homes in the area. Duchess Elisabeth Sofie’s mother and father were back for the performance and had opened their Saalfeld house to guests. Count Ludwig, Emelie’s husband, was in attendance. The sudden influx of people and their money was pushing up demand and local prices for accommodation.
On the merchandising front, Melba Sue and her team of ceramic artists were working overtime, and were still unable to meet demand for their range of ballet and Brillo figurines. Other artists were pumping out paintings of the performers, and hanging in pride of place in the auditorium foyer was a large oil painting of Carl and Staci as Cavalier and Sugar Plum Fairy in a scene from the ballet.
Meanwhile, I had heard that Flo was being run into the ground with demand for Brillo merchandise. There was even a story going around that someone had offered some obscene amount to buy Brillo. The fact that he was still on Flo’s farm was, as far as I was concerned, proof positive that there was no truth in that story.
Before class started I did a check for injuries. Franz Sprug, the boy who hurt himself yesterday, was a little bruised and tender, but otherwise okay. Nobody else admitted to carrying an injury. That was expected. Not only were the performers going to get paid for this short season, but tonight would be a historic occasion. Nobody wanted to miss it.
My son Joseph played up a little, pretending to have developed a limp, but a whack on the back of the head with a thrown pointe shoe soon had him scampering away. I couldn’t be too hard on him. His fooling around had broken the ice and people were visibly relaxing.
For the next four hours I worked everyone into the ground. We were all sweating heavily, and some of the dancers were starting to droop when I called an end to rehearsal. I was happy with how everything was going. I sent everyone out to clean up, eat, drink, and get as much rest as they could before the evening premiere. They had about five hours before the curtain went up.
* * *
“Where the hell is Carl?” I was just about in a panic. The auditorium was starting to fill up and I couldn’t see him anywhere. Looking around I found Casey. “Casey, have you seen Carl? I’ve looked everywhere.”
She pointed to a lump off in one corner of the Green room. He was sleeping. Again! How could he sleep at a time like this? I stamped my way over to him. A head poked out of the sleeping bag as I got close. “Is it time to start?”
“Yes,” I just about roared. How dare he be so relaxed when I was so on edge? I watched as he slipped out of his sleeping bag, and bundled it into a corner. He then had the nerve to turn round and smile at me. “Warm up, you don’t want your muscles getting cold, not with how the soldier doll dance is supposed to end,” I said in a relatively controlled voice, all things considered.
I was just turning away when a stifled chuckle stopped me dead. I turned and glared at Carl as he stretched out on the floor, warming up. I was severely tempted to kick him. Just then I felt a certain fellow feeling for Flo when Brillo was being unusually agreeable.
Amber Higham, the knowledgeable expert Mary Simpson had dug up to serve as theatre manager for the ballet season, waved me over to look at the audience from behind the curtain. The seats were filling rapidly. There was a central roped off area that was filling up with dignitaries, and I’m sure, the princess. There couldn’t be that many young girls who might be seated in the VIP area. Around the roped off area, the more expensive seats were rapidly filling. Amber had told me how much she was charging for those seats. I’d been horrified. Then she told me the latest scalper’s price. Ouch. It looked like someone was making money out of my show.
Looking at the rest of the audience I felt that Catharina Matzinger’s father would be happy. It looked like half the audience was fitted out in clothes made from his fancy new colored cloth, and the women didn’t look too drab either. With their batik silk gowns topped with fancy shawls made by Flo’s ladies, they made a pretty picture.
Receiving a signal from somewhere in the auditorium Amber pulled me back to the performers. It was time to start. A quick survey of the technicians brought a forest of up-raised thumbs. We were ready to go. “Places” I called. With the stage set for the opening scene, and the party guests ready in the wings, I took one final calming look around. In just under two hours the performance would be over. I could hold together that long. From my position on the wings I signaled Deanna to start the music.
* * *
The curtain opened to the street scene. Snow was falling as guests started arriving for the party. Then, as Count Drosselmeyer passed into the house, the walls of the house pulled away, opening the drawing room to the audience. Doctor Stalbaum, his wife, Franz, the son, and Clara, the hero of the story, are greeting guests as they enter the drawing room. Then the children of the guests come in. They are seated on the floor for a puppet show. I don’t know if the audience really paid much attention to the puppet show, but it showed the Mouse King turning Count Drosselmeyer’s nephew into a nutcracker.
After the puppet show it was time to carry on the dancing dolls. First there was Carl as the soldier. He was good. The full splits he fell into at the end of his little performance drew a few sympathetic groans from the audience. But there was little chance of Carl hurting himself. He would have practiced it a few times before coming on, and if he wasn’t comfortable with it, he would have left that bit out. It’s visually effective how his legs just slide out from under him, but if he hurt himself it would have killed the evening’s performance there and then.
Next was Staci as the dancing doll. She spent only moments en pointe; if you weren’t watching carefully you could miss it or mistake it for demi pointe. Mark Matowski, yet another nephew, livened things up a bit as the Clown doll. Then it was time for the children to collect their gifts. Hobby horses for the boys, dolls for the girls. Except that Clara was given a Nutcracker Doll. The one used in the puppet show. The Nutcracker was subtly dressed in a MacKay plaid. The boys danced riding their hobby horses while the girls danced carrying their dolls. Nobody got tripped up or stumbled, and nobody got belted with a doll. All in all it went better than expected. Finally they were off stage and it was time for Cathy’s solo.
As Clara, Cathy danced for her nutcracker. She was adorable. She could only have done better if she was dancing en pointe. However, that was three or four years off. But she was doing really well even restricted to demi-pointe. I was so enthralled watching her that Harvey had to shake me to attract my attention. It was almost time for us to go on. There had been howls at home when I identified who would be the grandparents. There had been more howls, of laughter this time, at my husband’s reaction. But he was a good sport. Besides, we all knew he could do the part justice. He had performed it often enough in the past. The dance received the desired laughs from the audience as Harvey gloried in his bumbling grandfather act. Then we were off stage.
There was pandemonium with dancers dashing to and from the changing rooms. The mice were already lining up as they finished changing, ready for the next scene. Cathy McNally slipped onto the darkened stage. Going over to the Christmas tree to check on her Nutcracker, she cradled it in her arms she lay down. As the clock struck midnight, the mouse dancers started to appear. They even managed to appear one by one, at their designated place, in time to the striking of the hour. They were chucking around the toys from under the tree as Cathy awoke. She was without her Nutcracker. She fought off the mice as she searched for her Nutcracker.
Meanwhile the wall flats were withdrawn into the wings, giving the impression the room was growing. This time, thankfully, the Christmas tree grew on schedule. Then the soldiers, led by Joseph as the Nutcracker, appeared to fight the mice led by Carl’s Mouse King. Carl and Joseph made a real production of their fight. There was much leaping and jumping, and the ringing of steel as they fought with swords. I had protested about using steel blades, but both Carl and Joseph had insisted that the audience wouldn’t be impressed with the sound of wooden swords. While they fought, the mice seemed to be winning.
Almost unobserved at the back of the stage, Cathy took a rifle from above the fireplace and took aim. There was a gunshot, and Carl’s Mouse King took a long time dying. As the mice carried their fallen King from the field, the soldiers formed up and marched off leaving Cathy alone on stage.
That was the first bottleneck safely navigated. I could safely stand in the wings and admire Joseph in his MacKay plaid dance with Cathy. I wondered if any of the audience had picked up on the play on current events, with Cathy as sharpshooter Julie Sims and Joseph as Julie’s Scotsman Alex Mackay, but I was too entranced with what I was watching to really care. I’d be sure to find out after the performance anyway.
As Joseph and Cathy’s pas de deux came to an end snow started to fall. It was time for the first en pointe dance, just as soon as the audience stopped applauding the pas de deux. Eventually they let Joseph and Cathy leave the stage.
I could see the stage manager as she signaled the girls she was restarting the music. On they went in their startlingly white, calf length skirts. I just purred with contentment. It had been too long since I last saw a live performance, and this one was going well. As the Dance of the Snowflakes drew to an end, the lights slowly faded out. Then the curtain fell. It was the end of the first act.
As dancers madly dashed for the changing rooms and stage hands moved scenery and props, I leaned back into Harvey. He held my hands and gave me a cuddle. “It’s going well, girl, it’s going well. Only the second act to go.” I snuggled into Harvey as we waited for the warning bell to call back the audience.
“They love it, Bitty. They love it.” I reluctantly withdrew from Harvey’s embrace to see who was pulling on my arm. It was Amber Higham, the theater manager. “I snuck out to the foyer to listen in on the guests as they discussed what they had seen. They all seemed to be impressed, and they haven’t even seen the Grand Pas de Deux yet. I think we have a winner.”
Then, I heard her mutter to herself, “I wonder if we can increase the price for the remaining performances?” Harvey and I left her mumbling as we moved off to see how the dancers were coping.
The second act opened to the young lovers, Joseph and Cathy as Nutcracker and Clara, being greeted by Staci as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Carl as her cavalier. Joseph related how he vanquished the Mouse King in a mimelogue, while behind him Cathy shook her head and mimed that it was she who killed the Mouse King with a single shot. That drew a trickle of laughter from the audience. Then the four journeyed by boat to the Land of the Sweets, yet another mechanical contrivance, which actually worked.
Then it was time for the up-coming performers to strut their stuff in the character dances. First off the blocks were Mathias Steinbach and Michelle Matowski, Deanna’s daughter. They had the Spanish or Chocolate dance. Their costumes were brilliant, a real credit to the dyer’s art and Tom Stone’s chemistry.
Mathias and Michelle were followed by five girls in pseudo-Arabic harem clothes performing the Arabian or Coffee dance. The guys had all been in favor of copying the outfits from the Covent Garden version of Nutcracker, but I wasn’t prepared to put thinly clad girls with bare midriffs on the stage.
Next came Mike Song and none other than Duchess Elisabeth Sofie and our friendly cloth merchant’s daughter, Catharina Matzinger, to do a Chinese Fan dance. It should have been just one couple, but which girl do you leave out? I’d crumbled and put in both of them. It was only for a bit over a minute and they would both glory in being given such an important part.
They departed to be replaced by my find of Eastern Folk dancers. We had agreed on a modified version of their dance that fitted the music. It was extremely athletic, but glorious to watch. The audience appreciated the upbeat tempo of their dance as well. The pas de trios followed. Two of my best down-timer girls, Richelle Kubiak and Ursula Sprug, with, I’m sad to say, my nephew, Joe Calagna. Fortunately the male can get away with being little more than a prop for the girls to hang onto and dance around. A good male dancer helps. It’s not that Joe is a poor dancer. Technically he’s quite good. He just seems to lack that certain something that lifts a performance above the ordinary.
I was almost shaking with excitement. Everything was going so well! Nothing had gone wrong, the dancers were excelling, and the audience was responding. There was just the Waltz of the Flowers to go before the Grand Pas de Deux. The couples came on. All those willing down-time males who could dance had been a real windfall. I leaned back into Harvey and watched and appreciated what I was seeing. The brilliant colors of their costumes glistened as the girls danced. This was the second en pointe dance and the audience loved it. You could sense their excitement at what they were seeing as the dancers worked their magic.
Now it was time for the Grand Pas de Deux, the Cavalier and Sugar Plum Fairy in their great romantic dance. If Thursday’s rehearsal had been steamy, this was too hot to handle. Every look spoke volumes, every touch shouted of the feelings between them. I licked my lips, spellbound, as they danced. They finished to absolute silence. You could have heard a pin drop. Then the audience exploded in a sea of applause. I snuggled into Harvey as I took a peek at the audience. They were starting to stand as they applauded.
Eventually Carl and Staci escaped from the stage and the music restarted. It was time for the penultimate scene. With all the Sweets and the Waltz of the Flowers couples performing short sequences, and the two lead couples each performing a short pas de deux.
As the scene ended, the lights dimmed. For a moment there was total darkness. Then a glimmer of light was illuminating Cathy, asleep in a chair. Gradually the lights increased. The party guests started circulating again. Cathy looked around for her nutcracker, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then Count Drosselmeyer appeared with Joseph as his nephew. Joseph was dressed as the nutcracker prince, but without the plaid. He had in his arms a nutcracker, just like the one Cathy had lost. As Cathy accepted the replacement nutcracker and wrapped her arms around it, the lights faded out, and the curtain fell for the last time.
* * *
In return for the horrendous price the audience had paid to attend the premiere performance, they were all invited to attend a “meet the cast” dinner and cocktail party in the school cafeteria. When I had first heard what Mary intended and where, I laughed. Who would attend a dry cocktail party? But Mary had surprised us all. Somehow she managed to persuade the powers-that-be to allow the serving of alcohol on school grounds. That really brought home to me how socially powerful Mary was becoming.
As the cast entered the cafeteria we were split up by Mary’s Mafia and guided to various tables. Looking around I could see that there was a definite hierarchy. The more important the guests at a table, the more important the cast members they were allocated. Harvey and I were at the head table with Mary and her senior lieutenants. Carl and Staci were seated at the table beside us.
The dinner was magnificent. I didn’t know the school caterers could prepare so many up-time delicacies. The piece de resistance was the marvelous mountain of cream puffs with a spun sugar web covering them. There was enough for everyone to get a cream puff and whipped cream.
There was also the down-under sweet, the Pavlova, a meringue dessert smothered in whipped cream and preserved berries. Carl had talked about the dessert when the idea of this dinner first came up. He had a recipe he had picked up in Australia just before the Ring of Fire. And as the dessert was originally created to celebrate the tour of New Zealand and Australia by the celebrated Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, he had suggested that serving it tonight would be a fitting celebration of the coming of modern ballet to down-time Germany.
After dinner the cast walked around meeting as many people as possible. Harvey and I were taking a moment to ourselves as we looked on at the guests and sipped our wine. I stifled a giggle as I looked at my wineglass. Harvey examined his glass and smiled back. We were both sipping wine out of peanut butter classes. Something I had thought we left behind years ago. Apparently up-time peanut butter glasses, especially those with characters printed on them, were considered amongst the ultimate status symbols. So the guests had to be served from peanut butter classes. How Mary had managed to dig up sufficient to serve everyone I didn’t want to know.
Speaking of the devil, there was Mary Simpson heading my way. I saluted her with my wineglass.