Although I love the NYC Ballet Nutcracker  and see more in it every year, SFB’s 2004 version by Helgi Tomasson was a refreshing change of pace. The whole production is less sticky sweet, the décor is elegant, and the story has both cogency and humor. Vintage San Francisco Like a huge storybook, a series of […]

For the students at today’s Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, history reverberates within the very walls that surround them. The plaques announcing the graduating classes hang near the main stairwell on almost every floor. There’s Pavlova, class of 1899; Nijinsky, 1907; Balanchivadze, 1921; Ulanova, 1928; Nureyev, 1958; Makarova, 1959; Baryshnikov, 1967; and Vishneva, 1995. […]