The Nutcracker

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Nutcracker is a classical ballet in two acts. It is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It tells the story of a little girl who goes to the Land of Sweets on Christmas Eve. Ivan Vsevolozhsky and Marius Petipa adapted Hoffmann's story for the ballet. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the music. Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov designed the dances. The Nutcracker was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 18 December 1892. It was a modest success. Some people liked it, others did not. Because of its reception, the ballet was rarely seen in later years.

About fifty years later, Walt Disney used some of the Nutcracker music in his 1940 animated movie Fantasia. People liked the movie and started to take an interest in the ballet. Interest grew when George Balanchine's The Nutcracker was televised in the late 1950s. The ballet has been performed in many different places since then. It is loved by many people. Before the first performance, Tchaikovsky took some numbers from the ballet to form the Nutcracker Suite. This work was a great success on the concert stage, and is still played today.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Celesta

The "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is one of the most famous numbers in The Nutcracker. It was written for the celesta. This instrument was new at the time the dance was written. It looks like a small piano, but it sounds like bells. Tchaikovsky discovered the celesta in Paris in 1891 while making a journey to the United States. His publisher purchased one and promised to keep the purchase a secret. Tchaikovsky did not want Rimsky-Korsakov or Glazunov to "get wind of it and ... use it for unusual effects before me." Petipa wanted the Sugar Plum Fairy's music to sound like drops of water splashing in a fountain. Tchaikovsky thought the celesta was the instrument to do this. The original steps for the dance are unknown. Antonietta Dell'Era was the first to dance the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The character has very little dancing to do so Dell'Era put a gavotte by Alphonse Czibulka into the ballet. She then had something more to do.