‘Nutcracker’ always a seasonal favorite> Laura Nicoll charms the audience as Clara

Small voices whispered and giggled as the lights went down and those first strains of music rose. Little girls held their arms in arcs above their heads, and the boys got big-eyed. It was magic qua magic.

So it is each year when the Robinson Ballet Company civic-mindedly teams up with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at the Maine Center for the Arts to present “The Nutcracker,” Tchaikovsky’s ballet of holiday enchantment.

If you were one of the 4,000 or so folks who attended the four presentations over the weekend, then you know that you just gotta love Robinson Ballet and the BSO for presenting this time and time again. This year, in particular, the company was on its toes with a crispness, pulse and bounce that swept the audience into a dreamy world of sugar plums, angels, flowers, snowflakes — and a Mouse King that does the macarena. (Eek, talk about nightmares!)

Laura Nicoll, the 13-year-old dancer-actor who played Clara, charmed the audience with innocent coquetry and elegant composure. There was no grander moment in the ballet than when she and principal dancer Maureen Lynch, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, were side by side doing their dignified stuff.

Lynch and Kelly Holyoke, as the Dew Drop Fairy, upheld their hotshot status in this company. But Sarah Stoodley turned in voluptuous performances as the Snow Queen and the lead Arabian dancer. Her partner in the latter of those roles was the beefy Thomas McGary, a former dancer with Robinson who has — lucky for us — returned to dance. Heinrick Snyder showed he can whip across stage; Keith Robinson was mysteriously gamesome as Councilor Drosselmayer, and Robert Libbey added his usual dab of stunt work. But in a rather large cast, they proved to be the only mentionable male performers.

Unless you consider young Ian Robinson, who blithely zipped through several segments (including the primary role of Clara’s brother) and gave hope that the future may, indeed, hold promise of an adroit male contingency.

With so many sparkling female dancers, including gymnastically able kiddies, the unspectacular Russian divertissement would surely have benefited from nontraditional casting. No matter, though. At least at one performance, the audience gave these muscular leaping lords a burst of applause.

There is one guy whose contribution was herculean. Steve Carignan, the production manager, did a grand pas de deux of his own. The partners? Subtle lighting effects and expert technical direction.

A cast of child dancers, a bevy of buxom ballerinas, and the team of choreographers — as well as Christopher Zimmerman’s lively pace with the BSO — gave “The Nutcracker” its twinkle this year. An event of girlish reverie and family fun (on both sides of the stage), this annual production is one of the most warmhearted gifts of the season.