With Maestro Xiao-Lu Li calling forth the first notes of Tchaikovsky’s music for “The Nutcracker” ballet on Saturday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono, a reverie arose for more than Clara Silberhaus’ dreamscape holiday fantasy. For 20 years, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra and the Robinson Ballet Company have collaborated on this beloved Christmas event. How has this holiday spectacle changed through the years? Under another music director? Other choreographers? Dancers?

You could ask musicians who have been in the orchestra pit for all 20 years, many of whom forgo their formal blacks for this performance and spiritedly wear holiday reds and greens even though no one really sees them.

Or ask Keith Robinson and Maureen Lynch, the ballet’s veteran artistic directors who have danced in each production (again this year: Robinson as the mysterious Drosselmeyer and Lynch as the lithe and poetic soloist in the Arabian dance) and whose dramatic and comic instincts have matured and sweetened with time.

Or ask a performer such as high-schooler Jesse Dunham, who started as a little girl in the chorus and has gracefully taken over as the Snow Queen with her Prince, Nathaniel Bond, a muscular and limber partner.

To truly measure the breadth of 20 years, however, look no further than Rebecca Breau and Ian Robinson, this year’s Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier. Both grew up studying at Robinson. (Ian did more than study at the company; his parents run it.) Both are currently enrolled in rigorous academic dance programs in New York City, an engagement that might discourage them from returning to the same-old, same-old company of their origins.

Robinson and Breau, who performed the same roles last year (Robinson has also been a Reed Flute, and Breau was Clara six years ago) showed that they were well-prepared as young dancers and have found something crisp and disciplined in their new studies. They brought a fresh sharpness and easy athleticism to the grand pas de deux. They also brought the promise of even higher standards for the company.

This year’s show is proof of the spell “The Nutcracker” has cast on this community. It’s not all about pirouettes and jetes – impressive though they were. It’s also about the ensemble of musicians, dancers and technical experts working for the same goal of charming the audience. During the family party scene in the first act, more than 18 girls in frilly Victorian dresses and bouncing curls filled the stage. Little girls in the audience were imitating their balletic moves during intermission.

In the tradition of this company, all the dancers return in a variety of roles in Act II – as the impressive Sugar Mountain corps de ballet, from under Mother Ginger’s palatial dress, or as soloists, such as Katie Taylor’s confident and fawnish performance with John Warren and the loveable Reed Flutes, or Jessica Speed’s racing acrobatics with her fellow Russians in the Trepak divertissement. (Both acts received the loudest applause at Saturday afternoon’s performance.)

A community production will probably always have unrealized extensions or awkward lifts and landings, as well as children who forget to smile and others who smile too much. This particular company could stand an infusion of young male dancers. (Some years, there have been more than three or so boys.)

But there’s nothing out of date about this collaboration. The Robinson Ballet and BSO have a winner for all times – whether it’s the music, the star power (and this includes the percussion section, as well as harpist Molly Nichols), or the quietly wonderful contributions of Amanda Fahey as Clara, Sam Swanton as the Nutcracker, Jessica Speed as the Jack in the Box, and Audrey MacLean and Bernie Reeder with their hip-hop touches as the Harlequin Dolls. “The Nutcracker” has won its spot as the pride of the holidays.

Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.