For the Civic Ballet of San Luis Obispo, the holiday season means one thing: The Nutcracker.
“Some might call it a cherished SLO tradition,” Drew Silvaggio said with a laugh. “It’s been around a long time on the Central Coast—46 years to be exact.”
Silvaggio, who serves as the production’s director, said the ballet makes its annual appearance at the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo on Dec. 8.
“It’s always the event we put on that people come back for because of how grand a production the whole thing is,” he said. “I mean it really is a grand production.”
The holiday ballet performance has been a constant in dance company’s repertoire since the Civic Ballet’s founding in 1978 when Drew’s mother, Lorilee Silvaggio, organized the original. She passed away in 2020, but Drew carries the tradition forward.
“I think that’s really what makes it so unique, I mean not to say that other productions don’t have the same energy, but this is the Lorilee Silvaggio’s The Nutcracker arrangement,” he said. “Having that personal vision that she had for it continue even after she’s passed is really what helps make it shine.”
Since that first production, he said, the production has grown bigger in both execution and the number of performers.
“To have a place where we can show how hard all of our dancers are working is just great,” he said. “There are a lot of parts to keep up with that get to shine up on that stage.”
It’s not all dance though. Part of the magic of the entire ballet, Silvaggio said, is Opera San Luis Obispo orchestra’s performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker musical suite.
“I think that’s another reason this whole production is so great—you have the Opera San Luis orchestra performing the parts right alongside all of the dancers, and it creates a really versatile audience experience,” he said. “We found that it definitely brings more people to the theater, especially because dance isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea so if you just want to enjoy the soundtrack, you can do that as well.”
Each year’s production has its own unique challenges, and Silvaggio said the Civic Ballet wants each iteration to be fresh and exciting for returning viewers.
“It’s kind of an interesting issue to solve because we have so many people who come back year after year to many of our productions,” he said. “It’s one of those things where if I was in their shoes, I would appreciate that it changed, otherwise I’d get bored.”
Silvaggio said keeping each production of The Nutcracker fresh is less a matter of what to do and more a matter of where to put the dancers and in what roles.
“We have a great company of dancers on this and all of our productions who range as young as 7 and as old as 70,” he said with a laugh. “To be able to slot them into different roles and have it work is one of the best parts of putting together the show because it just showcases how versatile they can be.”
With a run time of almost two hours, Silvaggio said, it can be daunting to create fresh choreography with such a large cast.
“It would be hard for one person to do the whole show,” he said chuckling. “So I usually work with other choreographers in-house on the 30 percent I don’t do on my own, which is another thing that adds a lot of unique flairs to each year’s performance.”
That unique flair is one of the many reasons, Silvaggio is hoping that people will make The Nutcracker part of their holiday tradition this year.
“It’s a grand community production, made by people from the community, for the community,” Silvaggio said. “Whether it’s the dancers, the choreographers, the musicians, or even just the audience members who give us their time—we can’t do it without the support of any of those people.” Δ
Staff Writer Adrian Vincent Rosas is still messing up the spelling of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s name. Correct him at arosas@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Dec 7-17, 2023.
