How The Nutcracker became an American tradition

It’s Nutcracker season! There are at least a dozen productions of The Nutcracker in and around Los Angeles this month. It might be the most popular ballet in the world. But when it premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia more than a century ago, critics hated it. So how did The Nutcracker become so famous? Where can you see it in Los Angeles this year?

A rehearsal/fitting from the new "George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker"

by Miami City Ballet. Costumes designed by Isabel Toledo.

(Photos by Alexander Iziliaev, courtesy of the Music Center)