A perfect “Nutcracker” from the Milwaukee Ballet

I hope all four cast rotations in the Milwaukee Ballet’s The Nutcracker are as brilliant as the one I saw Friday (Dec. 16), on opening night.

Luz San Miguel and Ryan Martin, as the romantic couple Marie and Karl, and Nicole Teague and Marc Petrocci, as sibling rivals Clara and Fritz, matched up perfectly in every way. Both couples grow and change their relationships over the course of the ballet, and we read that growth and change in well-made dances.

The daring lifts and dives and delirious entwined turns choreographer Michael Pink devised for Marie and Karl capture the breathless bloom of first love. That duet, near the end of Act 1, also endows their big classical number, Petipa’s traditional Sugar Plum Pas de Deux, with meaning. Pink kept Petipa’s traditional Sugar Plum pas de deux; in this context and assigned to Marie and Karl, it shows them stepping into the structure of mature love and marriage, of taking a place in society. It took a certain kind of genius to see the narrative possibility in a dance usually assigned to a Sugar Plum Fairy and her out-of-nowhere Cavalier.

San Miguel and Martin partnered with utter confidence — she appeared as calm as she might be on her sofa at the long-held crest of a one-handed overhead lift — and embodied the courtly courtesy that is so important in ballet. And both handled their bravura solo variations with great aplomb. In Sugar Plum, Martin’s manly force and athleticism and San Miguel’s perfectly placement of point, limb and rhythm got the spirit as well as the steps.

Petrocci and Teague, convincing and committed in the juvenile roles, spent two thirds of the ballet teasing, poking and pursuing one another. But after their trials together, they begin to warm up to each other. The turning point comes in the Waltz of the Flowers. Exhilarated by the beauty around them, they fall into step and dance in parallel for the first time, and even partner a little. The dance tells us that they are no longer sibling rivals, but brother and sister and the best of friends.

They dance among the Flowers and among most of the Act 2 character numbers, and that is a great Michael Pink innovation, along with splitting the lead roles among two couples. Typically, the girl and her consort spend Act 2 sitting around watching. Their involvement in the dances enhances visual interest and gives opportunity for character development of the sort described above. And it gives Petrocci opportunity to join Patrick Howell, Joshua Reynolds and Tanner Schwartz in the fantastic Jacks dance, a clown number bursting with energy, tumbling comedy and break moves.

The Jacks and the Arabian — in which Diana Stetsura, sinuous as a cobra, slithered about the buff David Hohvannisyan — stood out from a strong slate of character dances. In the first act, Julianne Kepley coupled gleaming technique with a bright cheerleader vibe to make the Snow Queen a breath of fresh air. Throughout, from the party scenes to the mouse battle to the curtain calls, conductor Pasquale Laurino kept the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra and the show moving along briskly. And throughout, the entire company danced and acted with verve, skill and clarity.

This Nutcracker held the kids around me in rapt attention, but this is not a kiddie show. It’s a very good ballet and a lovely piece of theater.

The Milwaukee Ballet’s The Nutcracker runs through Dec. 26 at Marcus Center Uihlein Hall. Call MBC, 414-902-2103, or the Marcus box office, 414-273-7206, for tickets, which are $25-$69.