The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale | |
---|---|
Based on | "The Curse of Clara, or My Big Fat Disappointment" by Vickie Fagan |
Starring | Saara Chaudry, Chloe Gillard, Zoe Fraser, Sara Botsford, Sheila McCarthy, Phil Esposito, Karen Kain, Bob Cole |
Country of origin | Canada |
Original language | English |
Original release | |
Network | CBC Television |
Release | December 14, 2015 |
The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale is a Canadian animated television film, which aired on CBC Television in 2015. [1] Based on the autobiographical short story "The Curse of Clara, or My Big Fat Disappointment" by Vickie Fagan, the film centres on her experience as a young girl studying ballet at Canada's National Ballet School who is cast in the role of Clara in the school's annual production of The Nutcracker , only to learn of the longstanding legend that the role is cursed because nobody who played Clara as a student has ever gone on to play the starring role of the Sugar Plum Fairy as a professional adult dancer. [2] Her only guide through her fears and worries is her crush on hockey star Phil Esposito, whom she regularly imagines coaching and guiding her dancing. [3]
The film premiered on December 14, 2015 on CBC Television, [1] before receiving a repeat airing on Christmas Day. [2]
At the 5th Canadian Screen Awards in 2016, the film won the award for Best Animated Program or Series. [4]
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' 1844 short story The Nutcracker, itself a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years.
Philip Anthony Esposito is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, coach and executive, and current broadcaster for the Tampa Bay Lightning. A member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, he played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Black Hawks, Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers, winning two Stanley Cups with Boston.
Care Bears Nutcracker Suite is an animated television film featuring the Care Bears characters. Produced by the Canadian animation studio Nelvana in 1988, it is loosely based on the 1892 Nutcracker ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The film was directed by Joseph Sherman and Laura Shepherd, and produced by Nelvana's founders: Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert and Clive A. Smith. It serves as the series finale to the The Care Bears Family animated series.
Barbie in the Nutcracker is a November 22,2001 animated fantasy film co-produced by Mainframe Entertainment and Mattel Entertainment, and distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment.
"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is a novella-fairy tale written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Märchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.
Gillian Murphy is an American ballet dancer who is a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.
The Nutcracker Prince is a 1990 Canadian animated romance fantasy film directed by Paul Schibli based on the screenplay by Patricia Watson. It is a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" and Marius Petipa & Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, about a girl named Clara who is gifted a special nutcracker by her uncle. The gift draws her into a world of magic and wonder, and she brings about the conclusion to the legend of The Nutcracker, Prince of the Dolls: a young man named Hans who was transformed into a nutcracker by mice, and can only break the spell if he slays the Mouse King. The film stars Kiefer Sutherland as Hans, Megan Follows as Clara, Mike MacDonald as the evil Mouse King, Peter O'Toole as Pantaloon, an old soldier, Phyllis Diller as the Mouse Queen, and Peter Boretski as Uncle Drosselmeier.
Nutcracker Fantasy is a Japanese-American stop motion animated film produced by Sanrio, very loosely based on Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker and E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It is directed by Takeo Nakamura and written by Shintaro Tsuji, Eugene A. Fournier and Thomas Joachim. It was officially released in Japan on March 3, 1979 and later in the United States on July 6, 1979. The film was nominated for the 1980 Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and the 1980 Young Artist Award for Best Motion Picture featuring youth and won the 1980 Young Artist Award for Best Musical Entertainment.
Maria Olegovna Kochetkova is a Russian ballet dancer. She was a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet between 2007 and 2018, and with the American Ballet Theatre between 2015 and 2017. After that, she became a freelance dancer for several years, before joining the Finnish National Ballet in the 2020/21 season.
The Nuttiest Nutcracker is a 1999 animated direct-to-video Christmas film loosely based on the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. The film was directed by Harold Harris and starred the voices of Jim Belushi, Cheech Marin, and Phyllis Diller. This film follows a group of anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables. Their goal is to help the Nutcracker's army get a star to the top of a Christmas tree before midnight and stop a rodent army from destroying Christmas. The film was released on home video by Columbia TriStar Home Video in 1999. The film aired on CBS December 4, 1999, in addition to being shown on cable.
Laura Morera is a Spanish ballet dancer who was a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet until her retirement in 2023.
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture, also known as Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker or simply Nutcracker, is a 1986 American Christmas performing arts film produced by Pacific Northwest Ballet in association with Hyperion Pictures and Kushner/Locke, and released theatrically by Atlantic Releasing Corporation. It is a film adaptation of 1892 ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann.
Choreographer George Balanchine's production of Petipa and Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker is a broadly popular version of the ballet often performed in the United States. Conceived for the New York City Ballet, its premiere took place on February 2, 1954, at City Center, New York, with costumes by Karinska, sets by Horace Armistead and lighting and production by Jean Rosenthal.
Smiley Guy Studios is a Canadian television production company founded in 1998 by graduates of the Canadian Film Centre including Jeremy Diamond, Adrian Carter and Denny Silverthorne; Jonas Diamond joined in 1999. It is one of the most prominent creators of adult animation in Canada, with shows like Odd Job Jack, The Dating Guy, Sons of Butcher and Corner Gas Animated, unlike most studios which focus primarily on shows targeting children's or family demographics. Smiley Guy also produces family content.
Claire Louise Calvert is an English ballet dancer and is a first soloist at the Royal Ballet.
Amybeth McNulty is an Irish actress. She is known for her starring role as Anne Shirley in the CBC/Netflix drama series Anne with an E (2017–2019), based on the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. She has also played loquacious teenager Vickie in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things (2022–present).
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a 2018 American Christmas fantasy film directed by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston and produced by Mark Gordon and Larry Franco, from a screenplay by Ashleigh Powell. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures with The Mark Gordon Company, it is a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", as well as of Marius Petipa and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, about a young girl who is gifted a locked egg from her deceased mother and sets out in a magical land to retrieve the key. The film stars Keira Knightley, Mackenzie Foy, Eugenio Derbez, Matthew Macfadyen, Richard E. Grant, Misty Copeland, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman.
Saara Chaudry is a Canadian actress. She is most noted for her performances in The Breadwinner, for which she won an ACTRA Award for Best Voice Performance and was a finalist for Voice Acting in a Feature Production at the 45th Annie Awards, and The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale, for which she was a shortlisted Canadian Screen Award nominee for Best Performance in an Animated Television Program or Series at the 5th Canadian Screen Awards. She has also appeared in the television series Combat Hospital, Degrassi, Odd Squad, Max & Shred and Dino Dana.
Elena Lobsanova is a Russian-Canadian ballet dancer. She joined the National Ballet of Canada in 2004 and was promoted to principal dancer in 2015. In 2020, she joined the Miami City Ballet.