This morning, I and my son went to see a performance of "The Nutcracker" at the Ford Theater for the Performing Arts adjacent to the DSO. The 11am show was a Tiny Tots abridged version of the performance meaning that the show only lasted 1 1/2 hours instead of 2 hours. I choose the Tiny Tots performance to make sure that my 9 year old would not become antsy, but the show was so good that there was not a chance of that happening.
The music for "The Nutcracker" was provided not by the regular Detroit Symphony Orchestra, but by the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra where the average age of the players is 16 years old. The kids were fantastic! If I had not been sitting in the first row and able to see them as they were playing, I would never have known that they were teenagers and not the regular Detroit Symphony Orchestra. All the children in the audience were fascinated by the Civic Orchestra and came right up to the orchestra pit to watch them practice before the show and during intermission.
The average age of the kids in the audience was about 6 years old and they provided a wonderful flavor to the performance. The children in the audience were told at the beginning of the show that they were not in church and they did not have to stay in there seats during the performance. And by the second half of the show, the kids were in the aisles trying to imitate the wonderful dancing that they were seeing on stage from members of the local city of Taylor Ballet Americana. Besides the traditional ballet, there were also cossack dance numbers where the dancers did tumbling, back flips, and front flips. My son loved the back flips and tumbling and he applauded the loudest in the audience for those dances.
The show was a huge success and something that I know none of the adults and children in the audience will forget.
"The Nutcracker at the DSO" will have two other performances tonight at 7pm and (tomorrow) Sunday, December 6th at 2pm. Be sure to check it out. You will not be disappointed...
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