The Radio City Christmas Spectacula

After a nearly two decade gap, we gleefully returned to the enormous venue at Radio City Music Hall to see the holiday show once again. Despite the terrible weather and difficulty in navigating the traffic, blocked streets and long entry lines, when you enter the main lobby, you are immediately rewarded with a spectacularly decorated winter wonderland. The 90 minute performance fills the gigantic hall with up to 5,960 audience members, coming from all corners of the world to catch a glimpse of not only Santa Claus, but the famed dancing Rockettes.

The very first version of the “Christmas Spectacular” was in December of 1933, which was not just a live stage production, but ran alongside two feature films. Keeping to tradition, two scenes from the original performance have continued to this very day, the Rockettes “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers,” and the “The Living Nativity” boasting live animals on stage. In 2007 the show was updated, redesigned and choreographed as a part of the 75th anniversary of the Christmas show, and has been refined a bit over the last decade.

Each year there are up to 180 performances of the show in the season, running from early November until early January, with sometimes 5 performances on a single day. Originally, the Rockettes (previously called the Roxyettes) comprised 16 women, but today they are a group of 84, divided into two casts of 36 dancers and an additional 12 swings, who can fill in for ill dancers. The audition process for one of these prestigious positions is very competitive, and for those who land the job it means a rigorous rehearsal schedule starting six weeks before the show up, six hours a day, six days a week. All dancers chosen are between 5’5” and 5’101/2” but they are staged in a way that makes them seem a very similar height.

There are an additional 140 performers involved in the holiday show, ranging from featured singing, actors and more dancers who perform in numbers outside of the Rockettes’ routines. The orchestra is a large group of 35 musicians, the finest in New York City. Also featured are two Wurlitzer theater organs housed on either side of the stage. Each organ weighs 5,000 pounds and has over 4,000 pipes, and they are original to the building from 1932.

There is no single best part of the Christmas Spectacular, as is evident by the constant smiling and cheering of the audience for the whole duration of the performance. However, there were some highlights that were particularly impressive to me.  As always, the Rockettes are extraordinary, and their version of the “Parade of Wooden Soldiers” is both shockingly accurate and nerve wracking, as we have the watch all 36 “soldiers” slowly fall backwards into one another arms. The 6 featured singers are all so charming to watch, each with amazing vocal abilities.   The Nutcracker ballet was also very moving, with dancing animals and featuring a young ballerina, quite talented, too.  Since the last time we saw the production, technology has come far along and we were very happily surprised with the incredible visual effects that enhanced the backdrop in many of the scenes, particularly in the bus scene with the Rockettes.  It’s not hard to imagine why thousands and thousands of visitors come back to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular every year. The show is both charming and even moving at times and is a perfect holiday treat for audiences young and old.

For more information visit: https://www.rockettes.com/christmas/