So far, four Nutcrackers have been announced for London's Christmas 2025 season, starting in November and stretching beyond Christmas Day to the very end of the year. What follows is a guide to those four shows, all splendid in their own way, in chronological order. All are centred on a Christmas Eve party at Clara's home, and the magic that happens as the clock strikes midnight, leading to a series of famous divertissements in Act II;
At the premiere of the new short film, Following Enchantment's Line, Jock Soto, the Diné and Puerto Rican ballet dancer, could be seen gliding underneath vast blue New Mexico skies - the only time the audience saw him dance. Afterward, as the lights went up in Santa Fe's Lensic Performing Arts Center, lightning cracked the summer monsoon clouds. Hard rain echoed inside the theater, as Soto led a live rehearsal with dancers from Ballet Taos accompanied by classical music from his friend Laura Ortman.
The Bolshoi Theatre, where Shchedrin worked for many years, praised him in a statement for his priceless creative legacy. This is a huge tragedy and an irreparable loss for the entire world of art, it said. Born into a family of musicians in Moscow in 1932, Shchedrin graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He married Plisetskaya in 1958, writing The Seagull and The Lady With the Dog, based on the works of Anton Chekhov, as well as Anna Karenina for her.
Held at Lincoln Center, the black-tie affair honored Susan and Leonard Feinstein, a couple whose philanthropic portfolio reads like a masterclass in cultural preservation.
"Success is not the opposite of struggle. It includes struggle. Every person who's ever done something meaningful has had to endure moments of pain, confusion, loneliness and resistance. So, when those big moments come - when you're recognized, when your work is seen, when people start calling your name - don't forget how you got there. Don't let the spotlight erase your history. Let it illuminate it."
I always thought ballet would be a music box come to life. A dainty princess twirls in a stiff tutu while a prince solemnly assists, and the whole performance would serve up a tax-free inheritance in pointe shoes - polished, rarefied, and untouched by mortal concerns like gravity or sweat.
Derricks, producer Dhana Gilbert, production designer Bill Groom, and Sherman-Palladino took IndieWire inside the process of restaging the classics and creating Tobias' cutting-edge originals.