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Toledo Ballet is delighted to welcome Isabella LaFreniere, principal ballerina with New York City Ballet, as a guest artist for the 85^th annual production of The Nutcracker, presented by Fifth Third Bank. A proud alumna of Toledo Ballet, Isabella will take the stage as the Sugar Plum Fairy, bringing her journey full circle with the very production where she first danced as a child.

Since its composition in 1741 and premiere in Dublin in 1742 George Friedrich Handel’s oratorio Messiah has become a holiday tradition. Although nowadays it is performed almost exclusively at Christmas time, it was originally presented at Easter. The current institution of performing Messiah during Christmas, especially popular in the United States, may have been born at least partly of necessity: Laurence Cummings explains that “there is so much fine Easter music – Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, most especially – and so little great sacred music written for Christmas.”