PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Ballet<\/p>\n
Leap into the magic of the holidays with Philadelphia Ballet.<\/p>\n
“We’re presenting the number one tradition here in Philadelphia,” says Angel Corella, Artistic Director of Philadelphia Ballet. “George Balanchine’s ‘The Nutcracker.'”<\/p>\n
Corella calls the classic story “a beautiful fairy tale.”<\/p>\n
“Really, really Christmassy,” he says. “We love doing it.”<\/p>\n
Performances run through December 31 at the Academy of Music.<\/p>\n
Dancers from both the professional company and children from the school start rehearsing about a month prior.<\/p>\n
About 80 dancers of all ages share the stage.<\/p>\n
“The first act mainly is the kids,” says Corella. “And how they grow into being principal dancers, or doing the principal part, it’s quite rewarding.”<\/p>\n
We meet Marie at a Christmas party with her family, where her Uncle Drosselmeyer brings her a nutcracker that is supposed to be magical.<\/p>\n
She falls in love with the Nutcracker, but her brother, Fritz, breaks it.<\/p>\n
Marie gets really upset, but her uncle fixes it up and she falls asleep with the Nutcracker.<\/p>\n
She opens her eyes to find everything gigantic, including mice who attack her.<\/p>\n
“The Nutcracker comes to life and then defends her, kills the Mouse King,” says Corella.<\/p>\n
Together they travel through a forest where it starts to snow, which Corella says is “most people’s favorite scene.”<\/p>\n
“It’s so beautiful and pure that it’s quite touching,” he says. “Like the perfect vision of the holidays.”<\/p>\n
From there they go to the Land of Sweets.<\/p>\n
“They’re sitting in a throne in the back, and the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier, they dance for them,” he says. “And this is their way of celebrating with Marie and the Nutcracker.”<\/p>\n
The second act is mainly the company dancing. Different countries are represented by the candy and Tchaikovsky’s score shines.<\/p>\n
In the end, was it all just a dream?<\/p>\n
“The sets, the costumes, the dancing is so spectacular,” says Corella. “‘The Nutcracker’ is a holiday tradition not to be missed.”<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Ballet presents George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker” through December 31 at the Academy of Music.<\/p>\n
For more information:<\/strong> Academy of Music Copyright \u00a9 2025 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Ballet Leap into the magic of the holidays with Philadelphia Ballet.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":446528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[205517,5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-446527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-205517","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115718154017324055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Philadelphia Ballet – George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker”<\/a>
Link to Tickets at Academy of Music<\/a><\/p>\n
240 S. Broad Street
Philadelphia, Pa. 19102<\/p>\n