Have just seen this at the Royce Hall. Having seen the Long Beach Nutcracker a few times we thought we would see this one for a change. The story and sets are very different. It was good but the background scenery could have been a bit better and I felt the second half was very rushed in the story and some of the dancing was a bit repeatative but overall was lovely. We had great seats, row O 27, 29, 31 and the view was perfect. Royal Hall is lovely. Good ballet for all ages.

Scenery The scenery was lackluster, with zero effort put into it. The Christmas tree had only a few more needles than the Charlie Brown tree, and the home looked like an Anaheim rental--pre-renovations. Every backdrop was worst that the next. It was as if the background was an afterthought. Choreography Did they seriously remix some of the songs? Why? They had 129 years to acquire the correct soundtrack since they couldn't be bothered to invite a full orchestra to do it right. Out of the millions of mp3s online, no one could find the actual soundtrack, really? No one? Not one person had the CD? Okay. So there we are, listening to music like, "Is this the Nutcracker or Almondbuster? Where am I? Didn't matter anyway because none of the dancers were moving with the music anyway. Dancers unable to find the floor, tapping their feet around, looking. No core strength. Tripping, flailing, wobbling. Costumes looked like thriftstore finds. This was the worst production ever.