New York City Ballet's enormously popular annual performance of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker provides an unforgettable spark to everyone's holiday season.

Children of all ages from New York City and the around the world fill the David H. Koch Theater to be captivated by the lure of Tschaikovsky's music, Balanchine's choreography, Karinska's sumptuous costumes, and Rouben Ter-Arutunian's magical sets. All 90 dancers, 62 musicians, 40 stagehands and more than 125 children, in two alternating casts, from the School of American Ballet join forces to make each performance as magical as possible.

The elaborate stage elements and intricate lighting provide stunning visual effect. They include a one-ton Christmas tree that grows from a height of 12 feet to 41 feet, the comic figure of Mother Ginger which at 85 pounds and nine feet wide requires handling by three people once, as well as the continuous flutter of pure crystal-shaped snowflakes.

Of course it is Balanchine's choreography that sustains the ballet through two acts. Act I introduces the characters — the Stahlbaum children, Marie and Fritz, Herr Drosselmeier and his Nephew — and also begins the transition from reality into fantasy with the concluding Snowflake Waltz. Act II offers the complete transformation. We have entered the "Kingdom of the Sugarplum Fairy" and there is no turning back. The Nutcracker offers a magical retreat from day to day reality which you will re-enter transformed and enlivened after the show.