The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker(Russian:Щелкунчик,romanized:Shchelkunchik,pronounced[ɕːɪɫˈkunʲt͡ɕɪk]),Op.71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as aballet-féerie; Russian:балет-феерия,romanized:balet-feyeriya) byPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set onChristmas Eveat the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring aNutcracker doll. The plot is an adaptation ofAlexandre Dumas'1844 short storyThe Nutcracker, itself a retelling ofE. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short storyThe Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer wasMarius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier onThe Sleeping Beauty, assisted byLev Ivanov. Although the complete and stagedThe Nutcrackerballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minuteNutcracker Suitethat Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years.
Since the late 1960s,The Nutcrackerhas been danced by many ballet companies, especially in North America.Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of the ballet.Its score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story.
Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of thecelesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic balladThe Voyevoda(1891).
After the success ofThe Sleeping Beautyin 1890,Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would beIolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated onThe Sleeping Beauty.The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation ofE. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", byAlexandre Dumascalled "The Story of a Nutcracker".The plot of Hoffmann's story (and Dumas' adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann's tale contains a longflashbackstory within its main plot titled "The Tale of the Hard Nut", which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. This had to be excised for the ballet.
Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars.The completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for twenty-five days to conduct concerts for the opening ofCarnegie Hall.Tchaikovsky composed parts ofThe NutcrackerinRouen, France.
The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera,Iolanta, on 18 December [O.S.6 December] 1892, at theImperial Mariinsky Theatrein Saint Petersburg, Russia.Although the libretto was byMarius Petipa, who exactly choreographed the first production has been debated. Petipa began work on the choreography in August 1892; however, illness removed him from its completion and his assistant of seven years,Lev Ivanov, was brought in. Although Ivanov is often credited as the choreographer, some contemporary accounts credit Petipa. The performance was conducted by Italian composerRiccardo Drigo, withAntonietta Dell'Eraas the Sugar Plum Fairy,Pavel Gerdtas Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara,Sergei Legatas the Nutcracker-Prince, andTimofey Stukolkinas Drosselmeyer. Unlike in many later productions, the children's roles were performed by real children – students of theImperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg, with Belinskaya as Clara, and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz – rather than adults.
The first performance ofThe Nutcrackerwas not deemed a success.The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. Although some critics praised Dell'Era on herpointeworkas the Sugar Plum Fairy (she allegedly received five curtain-calls), one critic called her "corpulent" and "podgy". Olga Preobrajenskaya as the Columbine doll was panned by one critic as "completely insipid" and praised as "charming" by another.
Alexandre Benoisdescribed the choreography of the battle scene as confusing: "One can not understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards – quite amateurish."
The libretto was criticized as "lopsided"and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet,and many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until theGrand Pas de Deuxnear the end of the second act (which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program).Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt.Reception was better for Tchaikovsky's score. Some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration" and "from beginning to end, beautiful, melodious, original, and characteristic".But this also was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene "ponderous" and theGrand Pas de Deux"insipid".
In 1919, choreographerAlexander Gorskystaged a production which eliminated the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier and gave their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, who were played by adults instead of children. This was the first production to do so. An abridged version of the ballet was first performed outside Russia in Budapest (Royal Opera House) in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada.In 1934, choreographerVasili Vainonenstaged a version of the work that addressed many of the criticisms of the original 1892 production by casting adult dancers in the roles of Clara and the Prince, as Gorsky had. The Vainonen version influenced several later productions.
The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934,staged byNicholas Sergeyevafter Petipa's original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952.Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by theBallet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged inNew York Cityin 1940,Alexandra Fedorova– again, after Petipa's version.The ballet's first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944 by theSan Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director,Willam Christensen, and starring Gisella Caccialanza as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jocelyn Vollmar as the Snow Queen.After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presentedNutcrackerevery Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967, and 2004. The original Christensen version continues inSalt Lake City, where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by the Christensen-foundedBallet West.
TheNew York City Balletgave its first annual performance ofGeorge Balanchine's reworked staging ofThe Nutcrackerin 1954.The performance ofMaria Tallchiefin the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy helped elevate the work from obscurity into an annual Christmas classic and the industry's most reliable box-office draw. Critic Walter Terry remarked that "Maria Tallchief, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being. Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her inThe Nutcracker,one is tempted to doubt it."
Since Gorsky, Vainonen and Balanchine's productions, many other choreographers have made their own versions. Some institute the changes made by Gorsky and Vainonen while others, like Balanchine, utilize the original libretto. Some notable productions includeRudolf Nureyev's1963 productionfor theRoyal Ballet,Yury Grigorovichfor theBolshoi Ballet,Mikhail Baryshnikovfor theAmerican Ballet Theatre,Fernand NaultforLes Grands Ballets Canadiensstarting in 1964,Kent StowellforPacific Northwest Balletstarting in 1983, andPeter Wrightfor theRoyal Balletand theBirmingham Royal Ballet. In recent years, revisionist productions, including those byMark Morris,Matthew Bourne, andMikhail Chemiakinhave appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen's revival, whileMaurice Béjart's version completely discards the original plot and characters. In addition to annual live stagings of the work, many productions have also been televised or released on home video.
The following extrapolation of the characters (in order of appearance) is drawn from an examination of the stage directions in the score.
Below is a synopsis based on the original 1892 libretto by Marius Petipa. The story varies from production to production, though most follow the basic outline. The names of the characters also vary. In the original Hoffmann story, the young heroine is called Marie Stahlbaum and Clara (Klärchen) is her doll's name. In the adaptation by Dumas on which Petipa based his libretto, her name is Marie Silberhaus.In still other productions, such as Balanchine's, Clara is Marie Stahlbaum rather than Clara Silberhaus.
Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home
InNuremberg, Germanyon Christmas Eve in the 1820s, a family and their friends gather in the parlor to decorate the Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once the tree is finished, the children are summoned.
When the party begins,presents are given out to the children. When the owl-topped grandfather clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer—a councilman, magician, and Clara's godfather. He is also a talented toymaker who has brought with him gifts for the children, including four lifelike dolls who dance to the delight of all.He then has them put away for safekeeping.
Clara and her brother Fritz are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a woodennutcracker doll, which the other children ignore. Clara immediately takes a liking to it, but Fritz accidentally breaks it. Clara is heartbroken, but Drosselmeyer fixes the nutcracker, much to everyone's relief.
During the night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Clara returns to the parlor to check on the nutcracker. As she reaches the small bed, the clock strikes midnight and she looks up to see Drosselmeyer perched atop it. Suddenly, mice begin to fill the room and the Christmas tree begins to grow to dizzying heights. The nutcracker also grows to life size. Clara finds herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and the mice, led by their king.
The nutcracker appears to lead the gingerbread men, who are joined by tin soldiers, and by dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the seven-headed Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Clara throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him.
Scene 2: A Pine Forest
The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a human prince.He leads Clara through the moonlit night to a pine forest in which the snowflakes dance around them, beckoning them on to his kingdom as the first act ends.
The Land of Sweets
Clara and the Prince travel to the beautiful Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. He recounts for her how he had been saved from the Mouse King by Clara and transformed back into himself.
In honor of the young heroine, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia,tea from China,and candy canes from Russiaall dance for their amusement; Marzipan shepherdesses perform on their flutes;Mother Ginger has her children, thePolichinelles, emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers performs a waltz.To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance.
A final waltz is performed by all the sweets, after which the Sugar Plum Fairy ushers Clara and the Prince down from their throne. He bows to her, she kisses Clara goodbye, and leads them to a reindeer-drawn sleigh. It takes off as they wave goodbye to all the subjects who wave back.
In the original libretto, the ballet's apotheosis "represents a large beehive with flying bees, closely guarding their riches".Just likeSwan Lake, there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original.
The Nutcrackeris one of the composer's most popular compositions. The music belongs to theRomantic periodand contains some of his most memorable melodies, several of which are frequently used in television and film. (They are often heard in TV commercials shown during theChristmas season.)
Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on a one-octave scale in sequence. Tchaikovsky asked if it mattered whether the notes were in ascending or descending order and was assured it did not. This resulted in the Adagio from theGrand pas de deux, which, in the ballet, nearly always immediately follows the "Waltz of the Flowers". A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister Alexandra (9 January 1842 — 9 April 1891) had died shortly before he began composition of the ballet and that his sister's death influenced him to compose a melancholy, descending scale melody for the adagio of the Grand Pas de Deux.However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use, the ascending one in theBarcarollefromThe Seasons.
Tchaikovsky was less satisfied withThe Nutcrackerthan withThe Sleeping Beauty. (In the filmFantasia, commentatorDeems Taylorobserves that he "really detested" the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet(though he did write to a friend while composing it, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task").
The music is written for anorchestrawith the following instrumentation.
Titles of all of the numbers listed here come from Marius Petipa's original scenario as well as the original libretto and programs of the first production of 1892. All libretti and programs of works performed on the stages of the Imperial Theatres were titled in French, which was the official language of the Imperial Court, as well as the language from which balletic terminology is derived.
Casse-Noisette.Ballet-féeriein two acts and three tableaux with apotheosis.
List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along withtempo indications. Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892), the piano reduction score bySergei Taneyev(1892), both published byP. Jurgensonin Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.]
Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 première, formingThe Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the Saint Petersburg branch of the Musical Society.The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere,while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after theGeorge Balanchinestaging became a hit in New York City.The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted inDisney'sFantasia, omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of theNutcracker Suitemade by the composer:
TheParaphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltzis a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements fromThe Nutcrackerby the pianist and composerPercy Grainger.
The pianist and conductorMikhail Pletnevadapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:
The Nutcrackermade its initial appearance on disc in 1909 in an abridged performance on theOdeonlabel. Historically, this 4-disc set is considered to be the firstrecord album.The recording was conducted byHerman Finckand featured the London Palace Orchestra.It was not until after the modernLPrecord appeared in 1948 that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because of the ballet's approximate ninety minute length when performed without intermission, applause, or interpolated numbers, the music requires two LPs. MostCDissues of the music take up two discs, often with fillers. An exception is the 81-minute 1998Philipsrecording byValery Gergievthat fits onto one CD because of Gergiev's somewhat brisker tempi.
With the advent of the stereo LP coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings have been made. Notable conductors who have done so includeMaurice Abravanel,André Previn,Michael Tilson Thomas,Mariss Jansons,Seiji Ozawa,Richard Bonynge,Semyon Bychkov,Alexander Vedernikov,Ondrej Lenard,Mikhail Pletnev, andSimon Rattle.
There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, and both have corresponding soundtrack albums.
Ormandy, Reiner and Fiedler never recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. ConductorNeeme Järvihas recorded act 2 of the ballet complete, along with excerpts fromSwan Lake. The music is played by theRoyal Scottish National Orchestra.
In the United States, commentary emerged in the 2010s about the Chinese and Arabian characteristic dances. In a 2014 article titled "Sorry, 'The Nutcracker' Is Racist", writerAlice Robbpanned the typical choreography of the Chinese dance as white people wearing "harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted" and "wearing chopsticks in their black wigs"; the Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who "slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles".Similarly, dance professor Jennifer Fisher at theUniversity of California, Irvine, complained in 2018 about the use in the Chinese dance of "bobbing, subservient 'kowtow' steps,Fu Manchu mustaches, and, especially, the often-used saffron-tinged makeup, widely known as 'yellowface.'"In 2013,Dance Magazineprinted the opinions of three directors: Ronald Alexander of Steps on Broadway andThe Harlem School of the Artssaid the characters in some of the dances were "borderline caricatures, if not downright demeaning", and that some productions had made changes to improve this; Stoner Winslett of theRichmond BalletsaidThe Nutcrackerwas not racist and that her productions had a "diverse cast"; andDonald Byrdof Spectrum Dance Theater saw the ballet as Eurocentric and not racist.Some people who have performed in productions of the ballet do not see a problem because they are continuing what is viewed as "a tradition".According toGeorge Balanchine, the Arabian dance was a sensuous belly dance intended for the fathers, not the children.
Among the attempts to change the dances in the United States wereAustin McCormickmaking the Arabian dance into apole dance, andSan Francisco BalletandPittsburgh Ballet Theaterchanging the Chinese dance to adragon dance.Georgina Pazcoguinof theNew York City Balletand former dancer Phil Chan started the "Final Bow for Yellowface" movement and created a web site which explained the history of the practices and suggested changes. One of their points was that only the Chinese dance made dancers look like an ethnic group other than the one they belonged to. The New York City Ballet went on to dropgeishawigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed.
The Nutcracker's "Arabian" dance is in fact an embellished, exotified version of a traditionalGeorgianlullaby, with no genuine connection to the Arab culture.Alastair MacaulayofThe New York Timesdefended Tchaikovsky, saying he "never intended his Chinese and Arabian music to be ethnographically correct".He said, "their extraordinary color and energy are far from condescending, and they make the world of 'The Nutcracker' larger."To change anything is to "unbalanceThe Nutcracker" with music the author did not write. If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia.
Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:
There have been several recorded children's adaptations of the E. T. A. Hoffmann story (the basis for the ballet) using Tchaikovsky's music, some quite faithful, some not. One that was not was a version titledThe Nutcracker Suite for Children, narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcerMilton Cross, which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a 78-RPM album set in the 1940s. A later version, titledThe Nutcracker Suite, starredDenise Bryerand a full cast, was released in the 1960s on LP and made use of Tchaikovsky's music in the original orchestral arrangements. It was quite faithful to Hoffmann's storyThe Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the ballet is based, even to the point of including the section in which Clara cuts her arm on the glass toy cabinet, and also mentioning that she married the Prince at the end. It also included a less gruesome version of "The Tale of the Hard Nut", the tale-within-a-tale in Hoffmann's story. It was released as part of theTale Spinners for Childrenseries.
Spike Jonesproduced a 78 rpm record set "Spike Jones presents for the kiddies The Nutcracker Suite (with Apologies to Tchaikovsky)" in 1944. It includes the tracks: "The Little Girl's Dream", "Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "The Fairy Ball", "The Mysterious Room", "Back to the Fairy Ball" and "End of the Little Girl's Dream". This is all done in typical Spike Jones style, with the addition of choruses and some swing music. The entire recording is available at archive.com