The Australian Ballet’s big new work for the year, Christopher Wheeldon’s Oscar, gave the men of the company extraordinary opportunities to shine. It also showed what ballet can be in the 21st century.

With The Nutcracker it’s all about the company’s women and the enduring Imperial Russian ballet tradition of the 19th century. It’s pointe shoes, tutus, Tchaikovsky and the school of Petipa (the undersung Lev Ivanov had to complete the choreography when Petipa fell ill).

It’s fairy tales and forgetting your troubles. It’s men paying reverent homage to women. It’s about not having to worry too much about meaning and submitting to uncomplicated pleasures.

That’s probably just as well as Peter Wright’s version doesn’t bear too much close examination when it comes to meaning. It does however pay its great respects to the transcendent art of classical dance.

Sharni Spener and Joseph Calley in The Australian Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Photo © Daniel Boud

The exemplar of that on opening night was principal artist Sharni Spencer. The Sugar Plum Fairy’s connection to the story is tenuous in the extreme. She appears late in the day out of nowhere, simply to dance. Spencer...