I saw the Moscow Ballet perform
Swan Lake in Portland. It was shortened a bit to accommodate multiple performances in one day (3pm and 7pm), but much more than just the essence of the ballet was there. It isn't a large company, but I enjoyed their performance of
Swan Lake more than the Kirov/Maryinski's
Sleeping Beauty. I loved the corps and felt they danced with life, and the principals were terrific. If
Nutcracker is anything like
Swan Lake, the company will involve local kids in the production, and the audience will have many friends and family of the performers in it. It's a smallish touring company, and the set consisted mostly of drops; I don't know if the
Nutcracker sets will be similar, but the costumes for
Swan Lake were gorgeous.
Cincinnati Ballet's
Nutcracker has been choregraphed by Val Caniparoli, who used to dance for San Francisco Ballet and now performs character roles for the Company. His most known work is
Lambarena, but that was in a different vein than
Nutcracker. The sets and costumes are by Alain Vaes; I just saw a beautiful
Romeo and Juliet designed by him. Sadly, we have no reviews of the production on Ballet Talk, and some of the more promising Google search results link to pages that are no longer active. I did find
this 2004 review from the
Cincinnati Post, which may be helpful.
I've never seen the Company perform, and I can't compare the dancing between the two companies, but I was bowled over by the Moscow Ballet. However, there's more to the
Nutcracker than solo dancing, and the children in Cincinnati will have had a long rehearsal period and would be more organically integrated than in a production where individual rehearsal periods are shorter. If the sets are a large part of the magic for you and your family, it's almost certain that Cincinnati Ballet's will be more elaborate, since they don't have to tour the production.