History of "The Nutcracker"
The Nutcracker, a classic Christmas story, is a fairy tale ballet in two acts centered on a family’s Christmas Eve celebration. Alexandre Dumas Père’s adaptation of the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann was set to music by Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by Marius Petipa. It was commissioned by the director of Moscow’s Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1891, and the first show a week before Christmas in 1892. Since premiering in western countries in the 1940’s, this ballet has become the most popular ballet to be performed around Christmas time. The ballet’s story focuses on a young girl’s Christmas Eve and her awakening to the bigger world and romantic love. The composer selected eight of the more popular pieces before the ballet’s December 1892 showing, creating what is now known as the Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, as is heard in Moscow Ballet productions. The suite became instantly popular, but the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity as a Christmas performance event until almost 100 years later. The first performance of the Christmas ballet was held as a double premier together with Tchaikovsky’s last opera, lolanta, around the Christmas holiday season on December 18, 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is agreed that Lev Ivanov, Second Balletmaster to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, worked closely with Marius Petipa to create the holiday ballet. It was conducted by Riccardo Drigo, with Antoinetta Dell-Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as her Prince, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara/Masha, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker Prince, and Timofei Stukolkin as Uncle Drosselmeyer. The Christmas ballet was not initially performed outside of Russia, but in 1934, it was performed in England. Its first United States performance was in 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director and Balanchine student William Christensen. The New York City Ballet first performed George Balanchine’s Nutcracker in 1954, but the holiday ballet did not gain popularity until after the George Balanchine production became a hit in New York City. Now the well known Christmas story has been published in many book versions including colorful children-friendly ones. The plot involves a German girl Clara Stahlbaum and her coming-of-age one Christmas holiday. In Hoffmann’s tale, the girl is named Marie or Maria, while Clara - or Klärchen - is the name of one of her dolls. In the Great Russian Nutcracker, she is affectionately called Masha. Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from the director of Moscow’s Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, writing to a friend as he was composing the ballet, “I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.” While composing the music for the Christmas story, Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on the notes of the octave 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 Grand Adage from the Grand Pas de Deux of the second act where Clara/Masha dances with her magical Christmas present, the Nutcracker Prince. Among other things, the score of The Nutcracker is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad, The Voyevoda. Although well-known in The Nutcracker as the featured solo instrument in the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from Act II, it is also employed elsewhere in the same act. Moscow Ballet’s version of the Nutcracker ballet, known as the “Great Russian Nutcracker,” includes other unique elements in the telling of the traditional holiday tale. In the Moscow Ballet version, the setting is in Moscow, and the city’s famous onion-domed skyline is featured as a backdrop. Traditional Russian folk characters Ded Moroz (Father Christmas) and Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) escort Masha and the Nutcracker Prince to their dream world in Act II.
