The Nutcracker - Alberta Ballet Tickets

Although it is always a Christmas tradition to visit the Nutcracker every other year we found this years show a little underwhelming than year's past. There used to be 40+ snowflakes on stage for their entrance at the end of Act 1. And the cultural dances were pale...all the costumes were white or off-white. This does not represent any culture. And shouldn't there be a final performance for Clarissa? She was under represented.

My wife, daughter and I have seen Alberta Ballet's Nutcracker every year, with the exception of Covid cancellations, for the past 15 years. While always beautiful and uplifting, this year's performance was a bit disappointing with respect to choreography. The Act 2 Divertissement had only one Spanish dancer who had no whips in her performance; there was only one Russian Cossack dancer in an abbreviated performance (as opposed to two or three), and the dancers in the Grand pas de deux were so short in stature they detracted from the beauty and elegance of the Nutcracker's climatic scene. Perhaps we caught a performance played by the understudies; not sure. Still beautiful.

The only complaint I have is that the actual theatre doesn’t open until 30 minutes before the performance. That was not stated anywhere in any of my emails. Also, it would be very helpful if we could pay with credit card for the coat check

Amazing performance and venue! We will do it again in the future.

Next time we will sit a little closer and purchase tickets sooner.

The ballet and music as well as the decors and costumes were absolutely amazing! I’m disappointed in the Jubilee though, parking was a disaster and the coat checks only accepted cash which resulted in massive delays. We arrived 40 minutes prior to the start and barely made it on time to our seats. My suggestion is to open the adjacent parking lot, better signage to the parking lot and adding machines to accept electronic payment for the coat checks. There were also not enough refreshment stations and/or the system wasn’t working well so it took way too long and people got back to their seats too late.

Love both Alberta Ballet and Tchaikovsky. Wasn't sure about Act 2 changes. Personally prefer traditional choreography. Wasn't obvious why the changes were made, but then I looked it up. More inclusivity, less nationalism. I still enjoyed it, as always, just preferred the older Act 2. Wasn't clear initially why it had changed. Dancing was fantastic, love the live orchestra!!! Always a treat this time of year, very much appreciate all the efforts of dancers and musicians and tech crew! A huge job, and a Alberta Ballet and Calgary orchestra are Alberta treasures.

It was a nice performance. Please stop allowing people bringing snacks and eat them during the performances: it is highly distracting and disrespecting to the performers. Also, it would be nice to consider age restriction for viewing the performance: there was a bunch of visibly bored children that had absolutely no interest in the performance and at some point you could hear kids crying.

I brought my 15 year old daughter to see “The Nutcracker” on Dec24 and I recommend every mother-daughter to experience it at least once together as they grow up. My daughter was positively mesmerized for the entire performance. Unfortunately we had some distracting very young children beside us continuously getting out of their seat to wander around and peak at the orchestra down below and then dropping down into their seats again shaking the entire row, over and over again, but we tried our best to ignore them… the costumes were gorgeous, the dancers were brilliant and , the choreography and music were fantastic, an overall 5* performance from all of the artists. If the general public were a little more considerate of those around them, and made better judgment calls then to bring small children without the appropriate attention span to a performance like this, it would have been perfect.

The Nutcracker lost its magic without Chinese, Arabian and Russian dances.