Edmonton-based maestro Peter Dala is doing some quick math in his head to estimate the number of times he’s taken the podium for Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s lush, sweeping score for The Nutcracker. He goes back to his first one, as a young conductor in Switzerland in 1984, and methodically makes his way up to the past 19 years of leading the orchestra for Alberta Ballet’s near-annual production of the classic.

“It’s pushing up to over 400,” he concludes matter-of-factly, speaking to the Straight from Calgary, where the troupe is staging its Fabergé-pretty, Imperial Russia–set rendition before heading to the West Coast after Christmas.

If Dala’s last name sounds familiar in Vancouver’s classical scene, it’s because Peter is brother to Leslie, who, as coincidence would have it, is now conducting the Goh Ballet rendition of The Nutcracker. But he says there’s no rivalry here; in fact, Peter Dala makes it a sort of holiday tradition to visit with his sibling’s family when he travels here with Alberta Ballet. He plays down the extraordinariness of two brothers excelling in such a specialized field, pointing to a long tradition of conductor brothers—including the great violinist Isaac Stern’s sons Michael and David.

What perhaps most sets the Alberta Ballet version apart from the one his brother’s overseeing, and others, is its setting. Dala says he draws a lot of inspiration from that ornate, frosty world of onion domes and Cossack soldiers. “It’s been moved to Imperial Russia, which is where Tchaikovsky is from as well, and it gives it such grandeur,” Dala explains. “It’s so beautiful in the first act with the snow scene....I’m taking it all in. I don’t keep my head in the score.”

Likewise, he has to be watchful of the dancers. Cueing fluttering footwork has become a specialty of his, ever since his early days as a pianist for the Royal Ballet School.

“I’m always watching them,” he explains. “There are lots of places where I would call it a conversation going back and forth between the stage and myself.”

Are we talking eye contact? “Absolutely! Sometimes they look right down at me.”

As you can probably imagine, Dala has had a lot of years to dig into the history and textures of Tchaikovsky’s score—one that’s become ubiquitous at this time of year. The maestro traces its popularity back to Walt Disney’s animated Fantasia in the 1940s. Without a doubt, the gorgeous live music, from the rapt wonder of the “Waltz of the Flowers” harps and winds to the cascading strings of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince’s pas de deux, is what draws many audience members out to the show during the holidays.

But he’s quick to point out that the ballet and its music weren’t always so popular. Through his historical research, he’s discovered that Tchaikovsky struggled to compose the score, following as it did on the heels of the wildly successful Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. In 1892, when The Nutcracker premiered at Christmastime at St. Petersburg’s famed Mariinsky Theatre, it was met with some derision.

“The critics weren’t very impressed,” Dala reports, adding they had trouble reconciling the “earthly” first half, featuring the family’s Yuletide party scenes, with the magical second act.

One of the score’s most significant innovations was the use of the celeste, an instrument created by Auguste Mustel in 1886—a keyboard in which hammers hit metal plates instead of strings, as in a piano. Tchaikovsky discovered it en route through Paris to America.

“He thought it would be absolutely perfect for the Sugar Plum variations,” Dala says, referring to the famed sequence in the second act. “It had this tinkling quality, this beautiful ringing that sounds a bit like a glockenspiel. And it was the first time anyone outside of France had heard it.”

Listen for the celeste as Vancouver Symphony Orchestra members play the variations for the Alberta Ballet shows here. Those kinds of touches are what help make the music so special. But for Dala, who has seen so many soldiers, princes, and Sugar Plum Fairies dance across the stage, there is one other huge factor that gives this ballet its staying power.

“I would have to say one of the reasons that it has been so successful is because it includes children,” he says of the droves of local kids who join the pro dancers on-stage. And then there are the youngsters in the audience, poking their wee heads over the pit to look down at the orchestra at intermission. “Who knows? It might just inspire them to pursue music,” Dala says. They might even be able to spot the celeste.

Ballet BC presents Alberta Ballet’s The Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Saturday to Monday (December 28 to 30).