Yet the whole thing is absolutely in the spirit of the season. It’s set on the feast of St Nicholas, who, as I hardly need remind you, is the original Santa Claus (say that out loud and you’ll see where the name comes from) and in the composer’s world, this was the children’s feast. And so Saint Nick does comes in person to hand out presents and it is one of those presents, the Nutcracker, who comes to life and defeats the powers of darkness, the Mouse King. In the incomprehensible world of the Land of Sweets (even back then Christmas equated to tooth rot), the wounded Nutcracker comes into his own, and Clara, the put upon sister, is the heroine of the hour. It’s that subversion of the natural order of things, the defeat of strength by weakness and goodness, that makes it so inutterably Christmassy. And whether you go to the Coliseum or Covent Garden, the magic of the production derives from the story.
Paddington Bear has captured the spirit of Christmas when there’s no place for cynicism
