Beginning Wednesday, the Kirov Ballet will be offering the American audience a version of the “Nutcracker” at the Music Center during six performances, which promises to be an exquisite Russian interpretation.

Sergei Danilian, the Kirov’s spokesman and producer of its North American tours, has revealed that the production would draw on a 1934 version that choreographer Vasily Vainonen put together for the company, which had never been revised.

The performances are said to very similar to the original 1892 „Nutcracker,” created by Marius Petipa for the Russian Imperial Ballet and at the same time much different from Kirov’s 2001 version directed by the artist Mihail Chemiakin, which came into mixed reviews when it premiered.

In this production, the Clara character, a German girl who receives a nutcracker toy for Christmas from her godfather, will be called Masha and she will be portrayed by an adult ballerina, unlike in most of the United States productions of the ballet. Moreover, during the performances, three different Kirov principals are to take on the role of the girl.

The „Nutcracker,” a fairy tale-ballet in two acts, three scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was composed between 1891 and 1892.

During Christmas time, it is customary for Western countries to offer performances of the ballet, which premiered together with Tchaikovsky's last opera „Iolanta” on 18 December 1892 at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The first performance of the „Nutcracker” within the U.S took place in 1944 and was produced by the San Francisco Ballet, under artistic director Willam Christensen.