The David H. Koch Nutcracker

-- by Tom Phillips



Battle scene from Balanchine's Nutcracker

When New York City Ballet and New York City Opera announced in 2008 that David H. Koch would donate 100 million dollars to renovate the New York State Theater, the opera called it a “transformative gift.” The ballet said it would “ensure the integrity of George Balanchine’s vision for the theater ..for decades to come.”  Three years later the renovation is complete.  But the opera company has left the building, now called the David H. Koch Theater, and Balanchine’s vision is in the dumpster.  Lincoln Center, conceived as a place where high culture would be available to the masses, is becoming just another exclusive haunt for the One Percent.   

I came to this realization a few days ago, as I went to buy tickets for Balanchine’s Nutcracker.  This has been a family tradition since the 1960s, a holiday ritual that began at the box office in November.  At the New York State Theater, there was always a long line at the ticket windows, a New York social occasion.  People would chat animatedly as they waited, checking and re-checking a color-coded chart of seat availability.   Popular pricing was the rule, as it had been since the theater opened in 1964, when good seats were available for as little as 2 dollars.  Ticket prices crept up along with inflation over the years, but they were well below Broadway prices, and far below those at the Metropolitan Opera across the way.  My habit had been to buy a half-dozen tickets in the third or fourth ring, for something less than a day’s pay, and bring the family, along with occasional friends, relatives and neighbors, to an aesthetic feast that also served as an introduction to the art of ballet.  And I never went just once.  Besides the family excursions, I would return for multiple looks at different casts.  In addition to  cheap seats in the fourth ring, the State Theater offered standing room for a few dollars.  Once the curtain went up, you could take any empty seat.            

Visions of Sugar Plum Fairies were dancing in my head as I approached the theater last week, but this time, things were different.   There was no line at the box office.  The only other person was a middle-aged woman, a refugee from the Metropolitan Opera box office, hyperventilating over her discovery that opera tickets could cost $400.   

Things were nearly as shocking at the Koch box office.  When I inquired about seats in the third ring, the price quoted was $112 per ticket.  Expletive deleted.  Apologies to box office clerk, whose fault it wasn’t.  In a mild state of shock, I settled for just two seats in the fourth ring, at $91 each.  Further inquiries yielded the information that ticket prices begin at $29, but those $29 seats are not available for all performances, and when they are, they are just a very few of the worst seats in the house, with obstructed views or impossible sight lines.  I realized dimly that my family tradition is shot -- no more group excursions to the Nutcracker.  One final blow: inquiring about standing room, I find it is no longer offered except when the entire house is sold out.         

A look at the NYCB website makes it clear that the company has adopted an opaque pricing system that treats its customers like airline passengers, withholding information and aiming to charge whatever the market will bear.  Prices are no longer openly published on the website; one must click on a date and a section of the theater to get a quote.  There is, however, an advertised special for the wealthy.  For $225 a ticket, NYCB now offers a bloc of “VIP Sweet Seats”, front and center in the orchestra section.  These come with perks including a discount at the gift shop. 

All this may suit the one-percenters, who don’t like to wait in lines and don’t care what tickets cost.  But it ignores the vision of Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, and the other founders of Lincoln Center.  In the mid-20^th century, they set out to democratize the arts.  In the 21^st century, their  successors want to take the arts back for themselves. 

A footnote to my own story: of the kids I brought to the Nutcracker over the years, three went on to study at the School of American Ballet, all three performed in the Nutcracker, and one went on to a career in ballet.  This was a natural result of Balanchine and Kirstein’s plan.  In order to build an American ballet company, they needed to put ballet on display for the broad public, and draw in future generations of dancers.  Balanchine’s Nutcracker, and the New York State Theater itself were made for that mission.   

The Nutcracker ballet is a vision of discovery.  It begins with children’s games of leapfrog and ring-around-the-rosy, proceeds through a family folk-dance, a magic show and a dream to a land of pure dancing delight, climaxing in a romantic pas de deux for a fairy queen and her cavalier.  To see it as a child is often to dream of making that journey oneself.  Not to see it is never to know.   Most of NYCB’s dancers have not come from privileged backgrounds, but started out as kids who came, saw and took the journey.  What will the future hold, if excursions to the land of sweets are limited to the children of VIPs?

Copyright 2011 by Tom Phillips

Photo by Paul Kolnick