Henry Montilla, left, dances the title role in The Nutcracker by Festival Ballet at the Providence Performing Arts Center Friday through Sunday. Montilla shares the role with Ilya Burov.

Thomas Nola-Rion

A Christmas tradition makes a triumphant return: The Nutcracker.

Festival Ballet Providence, the state’s largest and oldest professional dance company, now in its 31st season, presents a five-show run of the holiday classic this weekend at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

As Nutcracker production goes, Festival’s is large and lush. Each show features a cast of more than 80, with several dozen children joining a couple of dozen Festival dancers. The costumes and sets, most of which Festival owns, are impressive, and so is the music of Tchaikovsky. However, this year the company has decided to go without a live orchestra, citing financial reasons, and instead is using recorded music, which it has done on occasion before.

For those who don’t know the story, it’s about a girl who gets a nutcracker for Christmas. That girl’s name is Clara, a role that’s shared in this production by Lauren Sylvia, of Rochester, Mass., and Kara Gentile, of Glocester. In Clara’s dreams, the Nutcracker comes to life and turns into a prince, a role shared here by Ilya Burov and Henry Montilla. And Clara imagines other characters, too, and conflict.

The Nutcracker saves Clara from mean mice, battling with the Queen of the Mice, played by Vilia Putrius and Leticia Guerrero, who also share the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy. And there’s a cavalcade of dance, with music and movement from around the world: Spain, France, China, Arabia and Russia.

In our last review of Festival’s two-act, two-hour production we characterized it as “excellent,” and “nicely detailed, with falling snow and hanging crystals, and little choreographic touches that personalize the dance.”

The production is choreographed by Mihailo Djuric, Festival’s artistic director, with assistance from Jolanta Valeikaite, the company’s ballet mistress, and Yves de Bouteiller, the company’s ballet mister.

Festival Ballet presents five performances of The Nutcracker at PPAC, 220 Weybosset St.: tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. For tickets, $18 to $83, call (401) 421-2787 or visit www.ppacri.org.

For those looking for some seasonal dance beyond The Nutcracker, there are other options, offered by local youth performance groups. Jump! offers three free shows of The Polar Express, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg of Providence. The shows are Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in Nordstrom at Providence Place. For more information, visit www.jumpdancecompany.org.

Also, for the 47th consecutive year, the State Ballet of Rhode Island performs Coppelia, about a man who becomes infatuated with a doll that he thinks is a woman. Performances are tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m. in Roberts Auditorium at Rhode Island College, 600 Mount Pleasant Ave., Providence. For tickets, $25 and $16 for children 12 and younger, call (401) 456-8144 or visit www.ric.edu/pfa.

brourke@projo.com