The Nutcracker

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Image:Nutcracker.jpg The story of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King was written by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816). Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story was set to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (after the libretto of Marius Petipa) and has become the most popular ballet performed around Christmas time. It is appealing to children and adults alike and has been a standard yearly feature of theatres in many cities.

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Story

The story has been published in many book versions including colorful children's versions. The plot revolves around a blonde German girl named Clara Stahlbaum.Template:Fn

The curtain opens to see the Stahlbaums' house, where a Christmas party is being held. Clara, her little brother Fritz, and their mother and father are celebrating with friends and family, when the mysterious godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, enters. He quickly produces a large bag of gifts for all the children. All are very happy, except for Clara, being the only one who does not receive a gift. Herr Drosselmeyer then produces three life-sized dolls, who each take a turn to dance. When the dances are done, Clara approaches Herr Drosselmeyer asking for a gift. Sadly, Drosselmeyer is out of presents. Clara runs to her mother in a fit of tears.

Drosselmeyer conjures up a Nutcracker. Clara is happy, but her brother Fritz is jealous, and breaks the Nutcracker. Drosselmeyer chases him off and mends the toy.

The party ends and the Stahlbaum family go to bed, but Clara is concerned about her Nutcracker, and comes out to the Christmas tree to see it. She falls asleep with the Nutcracker in her arms. When the clock strikes midnight, Clara hears the sound of mice. She wakes up and tries to run away, but the mice stop her. The Nutcracker and his band of soldiers rise to defend Clara, and the Mouse King leads his mice into battle.

A conflict ensues, and when the Mouse King stabs the Nutcracker, Clara throws her shoe at him. The mouse dies. The mice retreat, taking their dead leader with them. Clara cries for her Nutcracker, who is also dead, and her tears bring him back to life.

The two then dance, and the Nutcracker turns into a prince, who leads her into the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy, where dancing Snow Flakes greet them. The people of the land dance for them, and Clara wakes up under the Christmas tree with the Nutcracker in her arms.

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History of the ballet

Tchaikovsky composed the ballet ("Щелкунчик" in Russian) in 1891–1892, but he was unsatisfied with it and considered it to be one of his less successful pieces.

The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's Iolanta on December 18, 1892, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. It was conducted by Riccardo Drigo, and choreographed by Lev Ivanov. However, this performance had just limited success.

Suites derived from this ballet became very popular on the concert stage. The composer himself extracted a suite of seven movements from the ballet, but that authoritative move has not prevented later hands from arranging other selections and sequences of numbers. Eventually one of these ended up in Disney's Fantasia. In any case, The Nutcracker Suite should not be mistaken for the complete ballet.

Although the original ballet is only ninety minutes long, and therefore much shorter than Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, some modern staged performances have omitted or re-ordered some of the music, or inserted selections from elsewhere, thus adding to the confusion over the suites. For example, in The Nutcracker: a Fantasy on Ice, a television adaptation for ice skating from 1983 starring Dorothy Hamill and Robin Cousins, Tchaikovsky's score underwent not only reordering, but also insertion of music from his other ballets and also of music from Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches.

One novelty in Tchaikovsky's original score was the use of the celesta, a new instrument Tchaikovsky had discovered in Paris. He wanted it genuinely for the character of the Sugar-Plum Fairy to characterise her because of its "heavenly sweet sound". It appears not only in her "Dance," but also in other passages in Act II.

The current popularity of The Nutcracker is due in part to Willam Christensen, former Ballet master of the San Francisco Ballet, who imported the work to the United States in 1944. The success of the ballet and George Balanchine's choreography for his own 1954 version created a winter tradition of Nutcracker performances in the United States.

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The Music

The music in Tchaikovsky's ballet is some of the composer's most popular. The music belongs to the Romantic tradition and contains some of his most memorable melodies which are frequently used in television and film. The Trepak, or Russian dance, is one of the most recogizable pieces in the ballet, along with the famous Waltz of the Flowers and March, as well as the ubiquitous Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. The ballet contains surprisingly advanced harmonies and a wealth of melodic invention unsurpassed in ballet music. Nevertheless, the composer's reverence for Rococo and late 18th-century music can be detected in passages such as the Overture, the "entrée des parents," and "Tempo di Grossvater" in Act I.

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Ballet

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Act One

Image:Snowdance.jpg

  • 1 The Christmas Tree
  • 2 Marche
  • 3 Children's Gallop And Entry of the Parents
  • 4 Scene dansante: Drosselmeyer's Arrival and Distribution of Presents
  • 5 The Nutcracker and Grandfather Dance
  • 6 Departure of the Guests - Night
  • 7 The Battle
  • 8 A Pine Forest In Winter
  • 9 Waltz of the Snowflakes
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Act Two

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Suite

The suite derived and abridged from the ballet became more popular than the ballet itself, partly due to its inclusion in Walt Disney's Fantasia. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite culled by the composer.

  • I. Overture
  • II. Dances
    • A. Marche
    • B. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
    • C Russian Dance
    • D Arabian Dance
    • E. Chinese Dance
    • F. Danse mirlitons
  • III. Final Waltz
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Footnotes

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External links

es:El Cascanueces fr:Casse-Noisette (Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski) it:Lo Schiaccianoci he:מפצח האגוזים nl:Notenkraker (ballet) ja:くるみ割り人形 pl:Dziadek do orzechów sl:Hrestač fi:Pähkinänsärkijä sv:Nötknäpparen zh:胡桃夹子

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