"Undeniably, The Nutcracker is one of the best-known works in the international ballet repertoire," Erminia Kamel, the Cairo Opera Ballet Company’s artistic director, commented to Ahram Online.
"All around the world, the Christmas time has its very unique spirit, families get together, and children enjoy their holidays around the feast. Many families choose to attend The Nutcracker in the nearby operas or concert halls," Kamel adds.
In Cairo, the ballet will be staged seven times, with five performances in the evenings between 26 and 30 December and two matinee shows on 27 and 29 December.
"Being a staple Christmas work that embraces whole families and in particular resonates very well with children, many international troupes perform the Nutcracker multiple times; some staging it more than a dozen times between mid-December to the New Year," Kamel explains, pointing to the high interest in this work on the international scene and equally in Egypt.

The Nutcracker story
The ballet is a magical story that begins with the clock striking at midnight.
A little girl named Clara receives a mechanical doll for Christmas. When midnight comes, Clara is transported to an imaginary world where she witnesses the battle between the King of Mice and the Nutcracker. When the nutcracker wins, turning into a prince, he takes Clara on a journey to the Land of Snow and the Land of Sweets, inviting her to various dances.
Based on the story The Nutcracker and the King of Mice by E.T.A. Hoffmann, the ballet to the music by Tchaikovsky diverts a little from Hoffman’s text (as Pepita, choreographer, used Dumas’ revised version of The Nutcracker); however, the basic plot line remains the same. We meet Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, and a Mouse King with seven heads in the middle of wonderful choreography and family performance.
One of the most famous compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the popular scenes of The Nutcracker include Waltz of the Flowers, the sweet Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the famed March from the first act, the Dance of the Mirlitons (Act II), alongside a selection of unique dances: Arab, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian. Numerous of Tchaikovsky's melodies from The Nutcracker have been used in films and television commercials, becoming daily music for the audience, even if one is unaware of that fact.
Of course, nothing compares with The Nutcracker being staged with the dancers and the orchestra delivering Tchaikovsky's score.

The Nutcracker in Egypt
As much as The Nutcracker is a lovely story embedded in beautiful choreography, it is one of the rather challenging works for any ballet troupe. This fact adds additional glimmer to the magical story.
The history of The Nutcracker performances by Egyptian dancers goes back to the 1960s and the Khedivial Opera House (known as Old Opera House), over two decades before it was taken onto the new opera in Zamalek and staged by the Cairo Opera Ballet Company.
In 1966, the Cairo Ballet Company was formed as part of the Academy of Arts, training the first generation of Egyptian classical dancers.
Yet even before the company’s official launch, in 1961, the entire student body participated in the Novosibirsk Ballet Company’s full-length Nutcracker at the Khedivial Opera House.
In 1971, the Egyptian ballet company presented Kingdom of Sweets, a segment from The Nutcracker that included several iconic dances: Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, Russian, and the Waltz of the Flowers. The performance staged at the old opera was prepared by the artistic director Anatoly Kuznetsov.
But those were the last months of the Egyptian ballet and other troupe's performances at the old opera. With the burning of the Khedivial Opera House in October 1971, the entire ballet company, and hundreds of other artists, lost their home. The following years saw a complete dismantlement of the ballet troupe. It was at the hands of Abdel Moneim Kamel (1949-2013), one of the stars of the first Egyptian ballet company, that this art form was restored.

Since the early 1980s, Kamel, the "spiritual father of ballet," returned from his years of glory in Moscow and Teatro alla Scala in Milan and began restoring the ballet company. With the opening of the new opera in 1988, the Ballet Company, operating under the Academy of Arts, moved to the new stage, becoming the Cairo Opera Ballet Company, the name we know today.
In fact, the ballet was among the first complete works performed by the Cairo Opera Ballet Company as it premiered in 1993. While working on The Nutcracker, Kamel added his creative touches to the iconic work and enriched the characters, adding additional charm to the known choreography of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov Pepita. It is this version that continues to be performed throughout the years.
It is important to note that not only was Kamel the company's artistic director, but he also became artistic director of the Cairo Opera House in the 1990s and finally its chairman in 2004, a position he held until 2011, while Erminia Kamel became the troupe's artistic director.
Upon its premiere at the Cairo Opera, the role of Clara was given to Erminia Kamel (1993-1994), while Lamia Mohamed took the role of a younger Clara.
The Nutcracker’s performances have been dully repeated annually, each time featuring dancers who grew artistically and, with time, were replaced by the younger stars of the troupe.

Fairy Tales season
This year, The Nutcracker will be staged on 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 December at 8pm, with matinee performances to take place on 27 December at 2pm and 29 December at 11.30am.
All evening performances will be accompanied by the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by Nader Abbassi.
The Nutcracker will then return to the Cairo Opera House in the near future. "We are planning to stage the Pinocchio ballet in mid-January. The second half of those evenings will present scenes from The Nutcracker," Kamel reveals plans for the upcoming weeks.
"Then the curtain will definitely fall on this iconic ballet, until next Christmas. The fairy tales will continue though, with Sleeping Beauty ballet scheduled for February," she concludes, mentioning a ballet that had its debut performance by the Cairo Opera Ballet Company in May 2024.

Check here the list of Christmas and New Year events taking place in Cairo and Alexandria.
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