This is Yuri Grigorovich’s 1966 Nutcracker. Now 93, Grigorovich has been a towering presence at the Bolshoi Ballet as both a director and choreographer. Here he works from the E. T. A. Hoffmann story “Nutcracker and Mouse King,” but keen to escape plot into pure dance, he does take some liberties. At the 1966 premiere the leads were danced by Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev, one of the great ballet partnerships, larger than life. That’s what one expects from the Bolshoi. —L.J.