2010 Performance Schedule

Performances are at the Waterville Opera House, Waterville, Maine.

Friday, 10 December at 7:00 P.M.
Saturday, 11 December at 2:00 P.M.
Saturday, 11 December at 7:00 P.M.
Sunday, 12 December at 2:00 P.M.

For tickets call the Opera House Box Office, 207-873-7000

Adrian Silver as The Prince

The Bossov 2010 Nutcracker will feature Adrian Silver, dancing The Prince. Bossov Ballet Theatre is extremely pleased to have this powerful Danseur once again as The Nutcracker Prince, a role he performed admirably in years past. Now a resident of New York, where he often performs professionally, Adrian began dancing under the tutelage of Andrei Bossov and Natalya Getman at Bossov Ballet Theatre seven years ago. In 2007 he moved to California to dance with the LINES Ballet Repertory Ensemble, where he danced contemporary and modern repertoire with Alonzo King, Arturo Fernandez, and Yannis Adoniou. He then resumed more classical pursuits with Oakland Ballet under Ronn Guidi. After a year, upon invitation, he moved to Venezuela to dance with Ballet Contemporaneo de Caracas, where he danced numerous soloist roles by distinctly Latin American choreographers. Since returning to the US, he has danced for many modern and contemporary choreographers performing at venues and festivals in the US and in Europe. Among these are Kazuko Hirabayashi, Martin Lofsnes, Mary Anthony, Jose Limon, Ballet NY, and Arantxa Sargadoy.

Mollie Sharples performing Russian Roast Sugar

"I walked into the studio to look in on our Nutcracker rehearsal" recalls Michael Wyly, Bossov Ballet Theatre’s Founder and Executive Director of an event last month. "There was Mollie dancing "The Russian" from Act 2 - I recognized the music - but never, ever had I seen a dance like that! It was the speed! That and the power of it.

"So, I asked Andrei afterwards, "Where did that choreography come from?" I thought it must be some old classic Russian piece from the age of Tchaikovsky, or something danced by Cossacks in the days of Catherine the Great."

"It is mine" answered Andrei modestly. "I made it for Mollie because she can do it. We have never had a dancer who could do this before."

Andrei went on to assert that there is no dancer anywhere in New England who would be up to the demands of the choreography he created here. "She has made very much progress this year," Andrei continued. "She is a universal dancer. It means she can do everything. She can become any character. Slow and elegant or fast and clever. She is in full control of everything she does."

The Russian dance, "Russian Roast Sugar" follows the appearance of the other sweets: Spanish Chocolate, French Marzipan, Arabian Coffee, Chinese Tea, plus Andrei's original entree, American Cupcakes. The dance is called the trepak, originally a Ukrainian folkdance, but Mollie's trepak is no ordinary trepak and created by Andrei "because she can do it."

Andrei Bossov as Herr Drosselmeier

One more of the many features that will differentiate this year's Nutcracker from others is Andrei Bossov will be on stage in person – as Herr Drosselmeier. It is about once every five years that we get to see "The Master" bring the character to life in a way that no one else can. "It always takes some persuasion to get him to do it" Wyly says. "This year, I said, "Andrei how 'bout just one last time? For the memories." He agreed.

As a featured principal in Russia's mighty Kirov Ballet, Andrei's rare ability to act any part, whether humorous, fierce and dangerous, or sinister and mysterious, was part and parcel to the prowess of his virtuoso dancing technique.

About The Bossov Ballet Theatre Production Of
The Nutcracker Ballet

In Russia, Maine's own Andrei Bossov was no less recognized as a choreographer than was George Balanchine before Balanchine made his exit from the Soviet Union to join Ballet Russe in Western Europe, and subsequently to come to the United States. Both men were trained and recognized as choreographers of huge potential by the same school in St. Petersburg, known today as The Vaganova Academy, formerly the Imperial Ballet School of Russia.

Andrei – who asserts that ballet must be seen live to be appreciated as the human art form that it is - will stage his own very traditional yet peppered with innovation, which is never the same two years in a row, again this year at the Waterville Opera House. The Bossov Nutcracker boasts its own uniqueness.

Consider Andrei's snow scene. All Nutcrackers have snow scenes but not like Andrei's snow scene. No artificial snow allowed in his because the snowstorm is a human storm and the ballerinas become the snow itself like in no other ballet, darting in from the wings and disappearing again as the tiny new fallen flakes we see that tell us "We're going to get snow today – watch!" They tease us and just as we are soothed with the soft and powdery beauty, on stage thunders the whole Corps de Ballet, white-clad ballerina snowflakes twirling in every direction, swelling to a blizzard that clearly is going to last. Prince and Princess are caught up in it, pursued by the evil mouse king whom the ballerina snowflakes conspire to make him lose the track and, lost himself now, to disappear in the heaping drifts while Prince and Princess, braving the elements make their escape.

There is the battle of the mice vs. the soldiers, a consistent feature of every Nutcracker. But Andrei's mice are not little rodents crawling out of the wainscot, danced by children, as in other Nutcrackers. Andrei's mice are the disciplinarian adults we met earlier at the Christmas party who, in a little girls' dream after the party, grow grotesque rodent-like heads (papier-mache masks sculpted on bicycle helmets by a costuming genius) to do battle with the army of toy soldiers come alive.

The rapid ebb and flow of the battle is so effectively choreographed that no matter how often the scene has been danced, now over a century, one can’t but feel himself wondering which side will win, which side will lose.