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Show U. THEATRE TO PRESENT THE NUT-CRACKERBALLET NUT-CRACKERBALLET Now a holiday tradition in Salt Lake City, the 4th annual presentation presen-tation of the complete "Nutcracker Ballet" by the University of Utah Theatre Ballet, the Utah Symphony Orchestra, and the University of Utah Music Department ' will be presented at Kingsbury Hall between be-tween Christmas and New Year's, December 26. 27, 29. 30 and 31. it was announced today by William F. Christensen, director and choreo grapher of the University Theatre Ballet. The announcement was made at a luncheon for the press held by the U. of U. Theatre Ballet Society with Dr. W. Harold Horton, president of the society presiding. Evening performances will be at 8:30 p.m., except for New Year's Eve when the starting time will be moved up to 8:00 p.m. to allow people desiring to attend New Year's Eve parties to be out of Kingsbury Hall by about 9:30. Matinee performances at 2 :00 pm. are slated far Saturday, December 27, and Monday, December 29. The matinee performances will be at reduced prices to accomodate the heavy demand for lower-priced tickets for school children. Stars of the San Francisco Ballet, Sally Bailey and Richard Carter, have been signed as the guest artists ar-tists to perform the solo roles of The Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier Cava-lier to The Sugar Plum Fairy. Miss Bailey and Mr. Carter will arrive in Salt Lake City Christmas night. Both of them have appeared in these same roles at Kingsbury Hall before and have been great favorites favor-ites of Utah ballet patrons. Tickets went on sale at Kings bury Hall ticket office December 8, and at the Tribune building box office downtown on Thursday, Dec. 18. In addition to the visiting stars, the Nutcracker Ballet will be performed per-formed by about 70 members of the University of Utah Theatre Ballet under the direction of Mr. Christensen and with Ron Ross as assistant director. The music, written writ-ten by Tschaikowsky, will be presented pre-sented by the Complete Utah Symphony Sym-phony Orchestra of over 70 members mem-bers under the baton of Maestro Maurice Abravanel, musical director direc-tor and conductor. A choral group of 16 feminine voices from the U. of U. choirs will complete the roster ros-ter of performers. "Sereta Jones, U. Theatre costume cos-tume designer, and her staff are creating new and very beautiful costumes for almost the entire second sec-ond act", Mr. Christensen explained. explain-ed. "Also, Vern Adix, our U. of U. Theatre art director, and his crew are preparing many exciting new stage settings for our Nutcracker Nut-cracker Ballet this year". Dr. I lorton, ballet society president, presi-dent, pointed out that the first American presentation of the complete com-plete Nutcracker Ballet was directed direct-ed by Mr. Christensen in San Francisco Fran-cisco in 1944. He further explain ed that Salt Lake City today enjoys en-joys the unique position of being the only city in America presenting present-ing this festive Christmas ballet with full orchestration and in its complete musical form just as Tsch aikowsky first conceived it. A few other large U. S. cities and the CBS network present excerpts from the ballet each Christmas time but none of them present it in its entirety, en-tirety, he explained. Over the years, the Nutcracker Suite, a collection of musical excerpts ex-cerpts from the complete Nutcracker Nutcrack-er Ballet has become a great favorite favor-ite of concert-goers. The complete score, which will be presented in the Kingsbury production, it one of Tschaikowsky's most interesting works. It was his third and last ballet. For many years after its first presentation in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1892, the Nutcracker Ballet was presented only occasionally. occas-ionally. But in 1943 the Vic-Wells Company in London (forerunner of today's famed "Sadlers-Wells ' Ballet") revived the complete ballet. bal-let. It has been gaining popularity ever since and all three of the previous pre-vious performances at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah cam pus have been almost complete ' sellouts. |