CAMBRIDGE — The role of Dr. Drosselmeyer, Clara’s godpapa, has always been central to José Mateo Ballet Theatre’s “Nutcracker.” In part, that’s surely because it’s usually been taken by Mateo himself.

Daniel Benavides is bowing out with holiday flair. After years of making Christmas magic, the longtime Orlando Ballet dancer is taking his final turn as the mysterious Drosselmeyer in the company’s ...

To kids today he’s as familiar as Santa Claus; he’s that sometimes strange old man who seems to make everything happen in the “Nutcracker,” Tchaikovsky’s century-old ballet that is now a standard of ...

I'm hopelessly sentimental about Nutcracker, but my uncle Brooks takes a dimmer view. "It's a story for adults," he says. "Remember, the ballet starts with a frightened little girl and ends with a ...

The action takes place in an old German town at the start of the last century but one. Night is falling. It is Christmas Eve and the streets are busy and festive. Drosselmeyer, an eccentric inventor ...

In Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s renowned ballet, “The Nutcracker,” the shifty-yet-kind Herr Drosselmeyer gives the blue-eyed, pure Clara Silberhaus a nutcracker toy for Christmas. That evening, from the ...