The SF Chronicle?s Steven Winn also offers a glimpse of the mammoth new San Francisco Ballet ?Nutcracker?:

?A visit to the company’s warehouse scene shop conjured visions of what this “Nutcracker” aspires to be as a visual spectacle. Far more scenery has been built rather than painted for this production. Stacks of window panels cut in sweeping curves stood near an enormous, woozily tilted fireplace and the world’s largest fireplace tools. Golden ornaments the size of basketballs adorned the lower branches of a Christmas tree. A pair of gigantic Spanish fans lolled behind a sheet of plywood. Picking her way through the sawdust and glitter, scenic supervisor Susan Tuohy called Yeargan’s set designs “very detailed and very elaborate.” A crew of 10 scenic artists and 10 carpenters started working on it in May.

” ‘Sylvia’ was a big show,” Tuohy said of the set the company built for Mark Morris’ production of that Delibes ballet earlier this year. “This one dwarfs it. There’s as least twice as much scenery and far more complexity than there was in ’86” for the “Nutcracker” production that’s now been retired. Costume designer Pakledinaz, speaking by cell phone between courses of a dinner party in Manhattan, described a quest “to make something original yet classic. We wanted to make it personal to San Francisco but also fantastical.” ?

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