Every vacation season , horde of people who just ever retrieve about ballet show up to see their local dancing ship’s company do a magical story complete with malevolent mice , dancingdesserts , and the most blazing anthropomorphic blizzard that ever existed . It’sThe Nutcracker , composed by Russia ’s Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — ofSwan LakeandThe Sleeping Beautyfame — and for many people , Christmasisn’t really Christmas without it . Here are eight facts about its origins and bequest .
1.The Nutcrackerwas based on a creepy story by E.T.A. Hoffmann.
In 1816 , German author E.T.A. Hoffmann penned “ The Nutcracker and the Mouse King ” ( sometimes translate as “ Nutcracker and the King of Mice ” ) , a narrative in which a young miss named Marie Stahlbaum ( German for “ blade Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ” ) receives a nuthatch from her godfather , Drosselmeier . Marie have the same antic risky venture as Tchaikovsky ’s protagonist later would : Her nutcracker come to life , and he whisks her off to a land of afters after she help him defeat an evil black eye world-beater .
But Hoffmann ’s story is darker than the ballet . Marie is so startled when the mouse Martin Luther King ’s host of mice ab initio reveal themselves that she unexpectedly breaks a glass cabinet and cuts open up her subdivision . The eternal sleep of the story strike place as Marie is laid up recoup from her injury . During the days , Drosselmeier entertains her with stories of the nutcracker and a mother computer mouse seeking vengeance for the slaying of her kinfolk . At night , the seven - headed black eye Billie Jean King blackmails Marie into giving him various possession , from confect to clothes , threatening to harm the nutcracker if she fails to abide by .
Not only is Marie wracked with concern for a good glob of the story , but she ’s also frustrated that her parent reject to believe anything she allege . At the veryend , Marie opts to subsist out the rest of her daytime reign over the land of sweets with her nutcracker - turn over - human being .
2. There’s a reason Marie is sometimes named Clara.
For a children ’s chronicle , “ The Nutcracker and the Mouse King ” is a middling nuanced portrayal of the manner in which children go through imagination and realism without any separation . It ’s also an bill of indictment of adult who send away them for doing so . As German lit bookman Jack Zipestold NPRin 2012 , it ’s authoritative that the tale culminates with Marie in a world that she choose , “ whereas in the ballet , it ’s a harmless diversion that is full of sort of dance and playfulness , but there ’s nothing profound in the ending of the ballet as it subsist . ” The exact concert dance varies by output , but it usually implies ( or explicitlyreveals ) that Marie has dreamed the whole thing .
The main reasonThe Nutcrackeris so much light than its source material is that it ’s actuallybased ona much swooning adaptation of Hoffmann ’s tarradiddle written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844 . This also explain why the champion in many of today’sNutcrackerproductions is named Clara or Klara : In Dumas ’s version , it ’s Klara Silberhaus ( German for “ silver-tongued house ” ) .
3. Tchaikovsky did not have a good time composingThe Nutcracker.
In 1890 , Ivan Vzevolovsky , director of the Imperial Theatres ( an Imperial Russia – geological era consortium of theaters ) , was looking to recreate the recent winner ofThe sleep Beautyby having the squad behind it develop a new ballet . Tchaikovsky would compose the music and the Mariinsky Theatre ’s ballet professional Marius Petipa would choreograph the dances for the in - household concert dance troupe .
It was reportedly Vzevolovsky who selected Dumas ’s fantastical Christmas narrative as the basis for the story , which Tchaikovsky was n’t too keen on . fit in tohis brother , Modeste Tchaikovsky , “ the subject ofThe Nutcrackerdid not much please him . ” Plus , it was one half of a duple posting : Tchaikovsky was also on the hook for an opera , Iolanthe , that would premiere decently beforeThe Nutcracker .
In April 1891 , Tchaikovsky complained in aletterto Vzevolovsky about “ the prospect of urgent , wearisome work ” and the “ torturing exertion ” it took to do it , characterizing his output so far as “ colorless , ironic , headlong , and wretched . ”
“ The cognizance that things are not going well torments me and agonizes me to tears , to the point of unwellness ; a deplete low constantly gnaws at my heart , and I have not for a tenacious time felt as infelicitous as now , ” he wrote . “ As always pass with very queasy and impressible people with unbalanced natures , whose injury are easily reopened , everything which is now worry and worrisome me take on monstrous proportion , bend into some kind of feverish nightmare which gives me peacefulness neither day nor Nox . ”
In the ending , he justaskedfor an extension , which Vzevolovsky granted . IolantheandThe Nutcrackerwould open in 1892 .
4. Tchaikovsky debuted a selection of the music in concert first.
In March 1892 — about nine months before the concert dance was scheduled to premier — Tchaikovskyconducteda concert in St. Petersburg for the Russian Musical Society . He ’d in the beginning planned to feature his fantasy overtureRomeo and Julietand a symphonic ballad calledVoyevoda , but his trust peers had reacted poorly enough to the latter that he ’d decided to scrap it from the lot tilt .
In its place he debuted eight while ofNutcrackermusic , includinga truncated feeler , “ March ” ( of the toy soldiers ) , “ dancing of the Sugar Plum Fairy , ” “ Russian Dance , ” “ Arabian Dance , ” “ Chinese Dance , ” “ Dance of the Reed Flutes , ” and “ Waltz of the Flowers . ” The hearing was so enamored with this excerption , now known asThe Nutcracker Suite , that they demanded encores of somewhere betweenfiveandall eightof the numbers , depending on your source .
The Nutcracker Suitehas been track countless time over the age , perhaps most notably on Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s1960 jazz recordof the same name . They jazzed up the track titles , too : “ March ” became “ Peanut Brittle Brigade , ” for example , and “ terpsichore of the Reed Flutes ” was replaced with “ Toot Toot Tootie Toot . ”
5. The original ballet production was polarizing.
In mid - December 1892,The Nutcrackerpremiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg , where the hearing receive it with mixed feelings . As one reviewerwrote , “ it is a commiseration that so much all right music is expended on nonsense unworthy of attention , but the music in general is excellent . ” Artist Alexandre Benoisbegged to disagree : “ Tchaikovsky has never written anything more banal than these numbers ! ” He also called the output design in the company scene “ both disgusting and deeply shocking … dazed , coarse , heavy , and dark , ” and find the second act even worse . He did , however , appreciate the Sugar Plum Fairy’spas de deuxwith her chevalier as well as a few of the divertissements . ( The Nutcrackerwould eventually grow on Benois , who go on to designsetsandcostumesfor it during the twentieth one C . )
What one critic praised , anotherpilloried . The Columbine dolly ’s dance during the party vista was “ charming ” to one , “ altogether flavourless ” to another . Antonietta Dell’Era , whose carrying into action as the Sugar Plum Fairy allegedly realise her five curtain calls , was save off by one detractor as “ pudgy . ”
Viewers did loosely agree on a few points , though : There were way too many children in the show , for one matter , and the battle scene was utterly tongue-tied . Benois described it as “ disorderly pushing about from corner to quoin and running rearward and forward — quite senseless and amateur . ” In fact , a number of the toy soldiers were n’t terpsichorean at all , but scholarly person from a military academy .
The “ Waltz of the snowflake , ” on the other hand , was a smashingsuccess . It was n’t Petipa ’s doing , though — the choreographer hadfallen illduring production , and his supporter , Lev Ivanov , had replaced him as the show ’s choreographer .
6. The celesta is the instrumental MVP of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
Petipa give Tchaikovskyextremely detailed directionsto follow when composingThe Nutcracker , often specifying the length and tempo of each firearm and even describing how the medicine should feel . For the Sugar Plum Fairy ’s solo , PetipawantedTchaikovsky to arouse “ cliff of water shooting out of fountains . ”
Tchaikovsky attain that outcome with the celesta , a piano - same percussion instrument with a delicate , aerial sound . The celesta , having only just beenpatentedin 1886 by Parisian craftsman Auguste Mustel , was still comparatively unidentified at the metre ; and Tchaikovsky , worriedthat another composer would make acclaim for using it before he did , really tried to keep it a arcanum from the world ahead ofThe Nutcracker ’s debut .
Since then , the celesta has become a popular alternative for opus meant to carry something dreamlike or charming — e.g. John Williams ’s “ Hedwig ’s Theme ” fromHarry Potter and the Sorcerer ’s Stone . Its reachisn’t confinedto Graeco-Roman music : Everyone from jazz legendFats WallertoThe Rolling Stoneshas boast the celesta in their songs .
7. George Balanchine popularizedThe Nutcrackerin the U.S.
The San Francisco Balletstageda yield ofThe Nutcrackerin December 1944 — the first time it had ever been do in the U.S. But if any one mortal merit the mention for really puttingThe Nutcrackeron the U.S. map , it’sGeorge Balanchine , co - laminitis and esthetic theatre director of the New York City Ballet .
Balanchine , a Russian expat who himself haddancedroles in the Mariinsky Theatre’sNutcracker , debut his version of the ballet in 1954 , and it cursorily became a holiday family favorite . The stage dancing and staging was so influential across the country that it ’s still performed by ballet companiesacrossthecountrytoday ( though not without alicense ) .
8.The Nutcrackerhas been criticized for racist stereotypes and cultural appropriation.
The volume ofThe Nutcracker ’s 2nd number comprises short , patch - less dance ( divertissements ) , some of which are themed around food and drink from different cultures : e.g. Spanish cocoa , Formosan tea , and Arabian coffee . Historically , the characters in these dances have been culturally appropriative at best and outright racist at unsound , and many concert dance caller have worked to remove offensive elements from their productions .
The Chinese tea dance in picky has seen anumber of originative reimaginingsin recent years . The Pacific Northwest Ballet ’s leading persona is now the Green Tea Cricket , honour the cricket ’s place in Chinese culture as asymbolof unspoilt luck . In the Boston Ballet’sNutcracker , meanwhile , the small-arm is now apas de deuxinspired by Taiwanese palm dancing .
