The Nutcracker
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The Nutcracker is a ballet written by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Based on the book The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman, it was commissioned by choreographer Marius Petipa in 1891. It is considered one of the greatest ballets ever written, and has become one of the most beloved pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Portions of it are familiar even to those who normally do not listen to classical music.
The first showing took place in 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, home of the Kirov Ballet. It was not a huge success, but Tchaikovsky had already arranged eight of the ballet's dances into a suite, which he premiered even before the ballet's opening. The suite was a rousing success, with every number encored at its first performance, and for years, the fame of the complete ballet was eclipsed by the popularity of the suite. Many, many recordings of the "Nutcracker Suite" have been and continue to be made.
It was not until 1944 that the first complete production of the ballet took place, performed by the San Francisco Ballet. In 1954, George Balanchine choreographed and premiered his New York City Ballet version, which has since been staged there every year, performed on television twice, and made into a feature film in 1993. Its success contributed greatly to making productions of The Nutcracker annual Christmas traditions all over the world - a phenomenon which did not really come to flower until the late 1960's.
The popularity of the Balanchine Nutcracker could be said to have been seriously challenged, however, by the highly acclaimed version choreographed by Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, which premiered in 1976 at Kennedy Center and was re-staged for television in 1977. The stage version starred Baryshnikov, Marianna Tcherkassky as Clara, and Alexander Minz as Drosselmeyer. On television, Gelsey Kirkland replaced Marianna Tcherkassky as Clara, but Baryshnikov and Minz were back in their original roles, and it is Ms. Kirkland, not Ms. Tcherkassky, who has become more identified with the role of Clara.
The Baryshnikov Nutcracker has since become both the most popular television version of the work and the bestselling videocassette and DVD version of the ballet - outselling not only every other video version of The Nutcracker, but every other ballet video as well. It is only one of two versions of the ballet to have been nominated for Emmys - the other was Mark Morris's intentionally exaggerated and satirical take on the ballet, The Hard Nut, telecast on PBS in 1992.
1954 was also the year that the first complete recorded version of the ballet appeared (performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Dorati). With the advent of the stereo era, and the growing popularity of the complete ballet, however, many complete recordings of it have been made over the last thirty years.
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[edit] Story
The plot revolves around a young German girl named Clara Stahlbaum, or Clara Silverhaus. In some Nutcracker productions, Clara is called Marie. (In Hoffmann's tale, the girl's name actually is Marie or Maria, while Clara - or "Klärchen" - is the name of one of her dolls.)
[edit] Act I
The curtain opens to see the Stahlbaums' house, where a Christmas party is being held. Clara, her little brother Fritz, and their parents 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, except Clara. Herr Drosselmeyer then produces three life-sized dolls, who each take a turn to dance. When the dances are done, Clara asks Herr Drosselmeyer for a gift. Drosselmeyer is out of presents, and Clara runs to her mother in a fit of tears.
Drosselmeyer conjures up a Nutcracker. Clara is happy, but 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 sees Drosselmeyer perched over the grandfather clock. She tries to run away, but the mice stop her. (Or perhaps Clara is dreaming: she shrinks down to the size of the other toys.) 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 Clara helps the Nutcracker by throwing her slipper at the Mouse King, the Nutcracker seizes his opportunity and stabs him. The mouse dies. The mice retreat, taking their dead leader with them. The Nutcracker turns into a prince. He and Clara fall in love as they dance together to a world where dancing snowflakes greet them and fairies and queens dance.
[edit] Act II
The people of the Land of Sweets dance for Clara and the Prince in the dances of Dew Drop Fairy, Spanish Chocolate, Chinese Tea, Arabian Coffee, Russian, Mother Ginger, Polichinelle, Marzipan, Sugar Plum Fairy, and Waltz of the Flowers. Clara wakes up under the Christmas tree with the Nutcracker toy in her arms.
[edit] 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 recognizable 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.
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. Tchaikovsky also uses toy instruments during the Christmas party scene.
Suites derived from this ballet became very popular on the concert stage. The composer himself extracted a suite of eight pieces 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 (film). 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 Ballet, 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. In fact, most of the very famous versions of the ballet have had the order of the dances slightly re-arranged, if they have not actually altered the music.
- 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.
- A filmed German-American co-production, first telecast in the United States in 1965, hosted and narrated by Eddie Albert, and choreographed by Kurt Jacob, featured a cast made up from several companies, including Edward Villella, Patricia McBride and Melissa Hayden from the New York City Ballet. It cut the ballet down to a one-act version lasting slightly less than an hour, and drastically re-ordered all the dances, even to the point of altering the storyline (Clara and the Nutcracker must now journey to the Castle of the Sugar Plum Fairy, where the Fairy will wave her wand and turn the Nutcracker back into a Prince). But all of the music was from the actual "Nutcracker" ballet, and not from any other source.
- In Baryshnikov's American Ballet Theatre version, all of the original Tchaikovsky score is used, but the order of most of the dances in Act II (the section of the ballet with the least plot) is changed, and the "Arabian Dance" had to be omitted in the television version in order to bring the program in at ninety minutes with three commercial breaks. Drosselmeyer makes his appearance at the Christmas party earlier, just before the Marche, and the music normally used for his entrance is here used as scoring for the puppet show. Baryshnikov also turned the "Intrada" (slow section) from the "Pas de Deux" into a dance for Clara and the Prince rather than one for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. He made it the emotional climax of the ballet by placing it just before the Final Waltz and Apotheosis, rather than just before the Tarantella - this in a scene that ordinarily has no big emotional moment.
- In the Royal Ballet, London's 1985 version, Tchaikovsky's score is used and the original order of the dances is not changed at all, but the Mother Ginger dance is omitted. Drosselmeyer is again first seen much earlier here. This version was re-staged with some of the same dancers taking different roles, as well as with new dancers, in 2001. In the 2001 version, Alina Cojocaru danced the role of Clara, a role danced in 1985 by Julie Rose. Anthony Dowell, who had danced the Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier in 1985, danced the role of Drosselmeyer in the 2001 version.
- The 1954 George Balanchine New York City Ballet version adds to Tchaikovsky's complete score an entr'acte that the composer wrote for Act II of "The Sleeping Beauty". It is used as a transition between the departure of the guests and the battle with the mice. During this transition, Clara's mother appears in the living room and throws a blanket over the girl, who has crept downstairs and fallen asleep on the sofa; then Drosselmeyer appears, repairs the Nutcracker, and binds the jaw with a handkerchief. And the "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" is moved from near the end of Act II of "The Nutcracker" to near the beginning of the second act, just after the Sugar Plum Fairy makes her first appearance.
- Rudolf Nureyev's 1967 version for the Royal Ballet, in which he dances both the roles of Drosselmeyer and the Prince, but not the Nutcracker, changes the order of some of the musical numbers, repeating the music of the "mice attack" and the departure of the guests at the end, and omitting the Final Waltz and Apotheosis which normally conclude the ballet. It was filmed in 1968.
- Finally, Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Nutcracker", staged in 1983 and filmed for movie theatres in 1986, with sets and costumes by Maurice Sendak, adds a duet from Tchaikovsky's opera Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades) which is heard during the Christmas party sequence. Also, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is placed very early in the second act, rather than its traditional place toward the end, and is danced by the dream Clara.
However, nearly all of the CD and LP recordings of the complete ballet present Tchaikovsky's score exactly as he originally conceived it.
[edit] Pop version
In 1962 a novelty boogie piano arrangement of the "Marche", entitled "Nut Rocker", was a #1 single in the UK, and #21 in the USA. Credited to B. Bumble and the Stingers, it was produced by Kim Fowley and featured studio musicians Al Hazan (piano), Earl Palmer (drums), Tommy Tedesco (guitar) and Red Callender (bass). "Nut Rocker" has subsequently been covered by many others including The Shadows, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and the Dropkick Murphys. "Nut Rocker" is commonly connected to the NHL team the Boston Bruins. In 2004, The Invincible Czars (from Austin, Texas) arranged, recorded, and now annually perform the entire suite for rock band - guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, trumpet, and violin - reinventing the music with the stylistic, rhythmic, and dynamic twists and turns that mark their original music.
[edit] Ballet
(Numbers given according to the piano score from the Soviet collected edition of the composer's works, as reprinted Melville, NY: Belwin Mills [n.d.], in English where possible, with explanations added here in square brackets).
1. Overture Miniature (scored for woodwinds, violins and triangle only)
- Act One
2. March
3. Little Gallop [of the children] and entry of the parents
4. Scene dansante [Drosselmeyer's arrival and distribution of presents]
5. Scene and dance of the Grandfather
6. Scene [Departure of the guests -- night]
7. Scene [the battle]
8. Scene [a pine forest in winter]
9. Waltz of the Snowflakes
- Act Two
10. Scene [Introduction]
11. Scene [Arrival of Clara and the Prince]
12. Divertissement
a. Chocolate (Spanish dance)
b. Coffee (Arabian dance)
c. Tea (Chinese dance)
d. Trepak (Russian Dance)
e. Dance of the Mirlitons [also known as "Dance of the Reed-Flutes," "Dance of the Shepherdesses," and "Marzipan"]
f. Mother Ginger and the clowns [or "Mother Ginger and her children"]
13. Waltz of the Flowers
14. Pas de Deux (Sugar-Plum Fairy and a cavalier)
Variation I (for the male dancer) [Tarantella]
Variation II (for the female dancer) [Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy]
Coda
15. Final Waltz and Apotheosis
[edit] Suite
The suite derived and abridged from the ballet became more popular for a time than the ballet itself. Excerpts from it were included in Walt Disney's Fantasia (film).The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite culled by the composer.
I. Overture
II. Danses caractéristiques
A. Marche
B. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
C. Russian Trepak
D. Arabian Coffee
E. Chinese Tea
F. Dance of the Reed-Flutes
III. Waltz of the Flowers
The version heard in Fantasia, however, omitted the Overture and the March, and the dances left were placed in a different order:
I. Dances caractéristiques
A. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
B. Chinese Tea
C. Reed-Flutes
D. Arabian Coffee
E. Russian Trepak
II. Waltz of the Flowers
The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:
A. March
B. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
C. Tarantella
D. Intermezzo
E. Russian Trepak
F. China Dance
G. Andante
[edit] Source notes
"Taking the Nutcracker Home" by Jeffrey Gantz [[2]]
This article, however, has one glaring error - it states that the Baryshnikov "Nutcracker" was first telecast on PBS, when in fact, it was first telecast on CBS, complete with three commercial breaks - one between the Overture and Act I, one between Acts I and II, and one placed after the ballet ended and before the closing credits appeared onscreen. It moved to PBS in later years, when commercial TV began to telecast even fewer classical music programs than they were showing already. On PBS, it was/ is usually shown during Pledge drives, where the pause between Acts I and II provides the opportunity for a pledge break. The article, probably written before it was issued, also does not mention that the current re-mastered DVD edition of Baryshnikov's "Nutcracker" is available on Kultur Video, not on MGM/UA.
[edit] Footnotes
↑ In E.T.A. Hoffmann's original version of 1814, the family was named Stahlbaum. In Alexandre Dumas' French adaptation of 1844 the name was changed to Silberhaus.
[edit] External links
Nussknacker und Mausekönig by E.T.A. Hoffmann, 1814 (German text at Project Gutenberg)
Nussknacker and mouse king (Same German text from Project Gutenberg after an awful translation attempt by Google)
Histoire d'un Casse-Noisette by Alexandre Dumas, 1844 (French text at Project Gutenberg)
