For years and years and even more years, going to see the Sacramento Ballet rendition of the Nutracker was as much a part of our Christmas tradition as was the Christmas tree.  I think that the Ballet Artistic Director, Ron Cunningham, and his wife and co-director, Carinne Binda, are geniuses.  Every year they tweak a part of the ballet so that it is always fresh and captivating.
 
The Ballet had been saving their pennies to get new scenery for the Nutcracker for a very long time.  I saw nothing wrong with the scenery they had but apparently it was not close enough to the "real" thing to satisfy. 

About three years' ago the Ballet, with much ado, debuted their scenery.  We, of course, like everyone else were all atwitter about it.  It had been designed by a famous Russian designer - or something like that and cost a fortune and was just pluperfect!

Here is the original write-up from Sacramento News and Review of November 2003 -

"This year, the Sacramento Ballet’s Nutcracker will feature $150,000 worth of new scenery, replacing several pieces of well-worn gear built for the San Francisco Ballet’s 1946 production. (The San Francisco Ballet sold the sets to the Sacramento Ballet in 1968 for a mere $5,000--and Sacramento proceeded to use them for another 35 years!)

The new sets were designed by French-born Alain Vaës, who’s worked with the New York City Ballet among others. The new sets were built during the summer in St. Petersburg by Vozrozhdenie Ltd., a company that specializes in ballet scenery. In fact, Vaës worked with Vozrozhdenie on sets for The Nutcracker for a different ballet company the year before. As scenery builders, Russian craftsmen hold a solid reputation--and with international currency-exchange rates favoring the dollar over the ruble, getting the sets made in St. Petersburg made economic sense.

The new sets were shipped from Russia to Oakland by sea in September. Included were huge scrims depicting a snowy conifer forest lit by moonlight (based on Cunningham’s recommendation that it “look like Lake Tahoe in winter”) and a fantastic city with candy-cane towers.

But the eye-popper is an extended scrim that gradually unrolls, from the floor of the stage up into the overhead fly space, to create a “growing” Christmas tree. What begins as an ordinary, 10-foot-tall tree gradually expands into something like a giant sequoia, with the lower branches, replete with three-dimensional ornaments, spreading over the width of the stage.

To go with the new sets, the Sacramento Ballet is doing something it hasn’t done in a decade--hired a live orchestra to play Tchaikovsky’s music. Though preferable in artistic terms, this is a financial risk, considering flesh-and-blood musicians cost a lot more than recorded music. The dancers also have to stay extra alert because a human conductor might vary the tempo."     
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We hated it.  Other than the magical Christmas Tree,  we hated the scenery so much that the Nutcracker has fallen off our list of must attends at Christmas time.  It made our eyes bleed.  We were so sorry to have that reaction and hope that we are in the scantest minority. 

Anyway, we aren't going to the Nutcracker this year but we still love the ballet and hope to see it in another city some year very soon.

This is the first segment of the ballet.  It is on You Tube in sixteen parts.  I hope you get a chance to watch all of it! (If you don't know the story of The Nutcracker I have included a snippet about it right here!)

The Nutcracker  is a fairy tale-ballet in two acts, three scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composed in 1891–92. Alexandre Dumas père's adaptation of the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E.T.A. Hoffmann was set to music by Tchaikovsky (written by Marius Petipa and commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1891). In Western countries, this ballet has become perhaps the most popular ballet, performed primarily around Christmas time.

The composer made a selection of eight of the more popular numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 premiere, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the St. Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular; the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity until around the mid-1960s.

Among other things, the score of The Nutcracker is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (premiered 1891).^  Although well-known in The Nutcracker as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II, it is employed elsewhere in the same act.

Synopsis

Konstantin Ivanov's original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker (1892)

The story has been published in many book versions including colorful children-friendly versions. The plot revolves around a German girl named Clara Stahlbaum or Clara Silverhaus. In some Nutcracker productions, Clara is called Marie. (In Hoffmann's tale, the girl's name actually is Marie or Maria, while Clara - or "Klärchen" - is the name of one of her dolls.)

Act I
The work opens with a brief "Miniature Overture", which also opens the Suite. The music sets the fairy mood by using upper registers of the orchestra exclusively. The curtain opens to reveal the Stahlbaums' house, where a Christmas Eve party is under way. Clara, her little brother Fritz, and their mother and father are celebrating with friends and family, when the mysterious godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, enters. He quickly produces a large bag of gifts for all the children. All are very happy, except for Clara, who has yet to be presented a gift. Herr Drosselmeyer then produces three life-size dolls, which each take a turn to dance. When the dances are done, Clara approaches Herr Drosselmeyer asking for her gift. It would seem that he is out of presents, and Clara runs to her mother in a fit of tears and disappointment.

Drosselmeyer then produces a toy Nutcracker, in the traditional shape of a soldier in full parade uniform. Clara is overjoyed, but her brother Fritz is jealous, and breaks the Nutcracker.

The party ends and the Stahlbaum family go to bed. While everybody is sleeping, Herr Drosselmeyer repairs the Nutcracker. Then Clara wakes up and sees her window open. When the clock strikes midnight, Clara hears the sound of mice. She wakes up and tries to run away, but the mice stop her. Alternatively, perhaps Clara is still in a dream: the Christmas tree suddenly begins to grow to enormous size, filling the room. The Nutcracker comes to life, he and his band of soldiers rise to defend Clara, and the Mouse King leads his mice into battle. Here Tchaikovsky continues the miniature effect of the Overture, setting the battle music predominantly in the orchestra's upper registers.

A conflict ensues, and when Clara helps the Nutcracker by holding the Mouse King by the tail or throwing her shoe at the Mouse King, the Nutcracker seizes his opportunity and stabs him. The mouse dies. The mice retreat, taking their dead leader with them. The Nutcracker is then transformed into a prince. (In Hoffmann's original story, and in the Royal Ballet's 1985 and 2001 versions, the Prince is actually Drosselmeyer's nephew, who had been turned into a Nutcracker by the Mouse King, and all the events following the Christmas party have been arranged by Drosselmeyer in order to break the spell.)

Clara and the Prince travel to a world where dancing Snowflakes greet them and fairies and queens dance, welcoming Clara and the Prince into their world. The score conveys the wondrous images by introducing a wordless children's chorus. The curtain falls on Act I.

Act II

Konstantin Ivanov's original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker, Act II (1892)

Clara and the Prince arrive at the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Sugar Plum Fairy and the people of the Land of Sweets dance for Clara and the Prince in the dances of Dew Drop Fairy, the Spanish dancers (sometimes Chocolate), the Chinese dancers (sometimes Tea), the Arabian dancers (sometimes Coffee), the Russian dancers (sometimes Candy Canes--their dance is called the Trepak), Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles (sometimes Bonbons, Taffy Clowns, or Court Buffoons in Baryshnikov's production), the Reed Flutes (sometimes Marzipan shepherds or Mirlitons), the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Waltz of the Flowers. The dances in the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy are not always performed in this order.

After the festivities, Clara wakes up under the Christmas tree with the Nutcracker toy in her arms and the curtain closes. (In Balanchine's version, however, she is never shown waking up; instead, after all the dances in the Kingdom of Sweets have concluded, she rides off with the Nutcracker/Prince on a Santa Claus-like flying sleigh, complete with reindeer, and the curtain falls. This gives the impression that the "dream" actually happens in reality, as in Hoffmann's original story. The 1985 Royal Ballet version seems to imply the same thing, since at the end, Drosselmeyer's nephew, who had really been transformed into a nutcracker, reappears in human form at the toymaker's shop.)

This is Part I as posted by Balletvideos.  The rest of the parts can be found by using that name on You Tube. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHQ7gPuZ3Qw