The sumptuous new three-act production was expensive.

Despite a sumptuous production with many inspired choreographic episodes, the ballet's mise-en-scène proved to be a mediocre success.

But there are other generally less sumptuous productions of the holiday classic to be seen in and around the New York area.

Now, two theater companies are preparing to mount it jointly in order to share the costs of what the playwright describes as a "sumptuous production."

Indeed, it is the art - and the origins - of storytelling, adorned by theatrical ingenuity, that inform a sumptuous production.

There are sumptuous coffee-table productions from famous restaurants, featuring impossibly complex recipes and gauzy photographs of the resultant architectural extravaganzas.

A sumptuous production with explanatory essays, this lists 538 works - 65 more than are in the 1977 edition - but includes hardly any drawings.

So there is a lot of flying in this sumptuous production, both by the car and the principal performers, who periodically soar over the audience.

As director, Peter Hall offers a sumptuous Venetian production.

An excellent cast and a sumptuous production bring extra immediacy to a tale of embezzlement and entitlement that feels as fresh as tomorrow's stock options (1:50).