One of Alexei Ratmansky’s big successes at American Ballet Theatre was his 2010 production of The Nutcracker, designed and costumed by Richard Hudson. Ratmansky has a lot of fun with a brazen little mouse who races through the holiday action, stealing sausages. And as the Kirkland–Baryshnikov production did before him, Ratmansky lets an adult dancer into the role of Clara, who in two big pas de deux envisions the young woman she will become (this role was a love letter to the ABT ballerina Veronika Part, who trained at the Mariinsky). Although the bees in the Land of Sweets are perhaps too silly, the production brims with beauty. —Laura Jacobs