Повесть сказка щелкунчик и мышиный король легла в основу балета щелкунчик кто автор этой сказки

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик^[a], tr. Shchelkunchik listen (help·info)) is an 1892 two-act «fairy ballet» (Russian: балет-феерия, balet-feyeriya) set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child’s imagination. The music is by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 71. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet’s first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.

Since the late 1960s, it has been danced by countless ballet companies, especially in North America.^[1] Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker.^[2][3] The ballet’s 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 the celesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891).

Composition[edit]

After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 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 be Iolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story «The Nutcracker and the Mouse King», by Alexandre Dumas called «The Story of a Nutcracker».^[4] The plot of Hoffmann’s story (and Dumas’ adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann’s tale contains a long flashback story 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.^[5]

Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars.^[4] 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 of Carnegie Hall.^[6] Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen, France.^[7]

History[edit]

Saint Petersburg premiere[edit]

The first performance of The Nutcracker was not deemed a success.^[8] The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. Although some critics praised Dell’Era on her pointework as 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.^[9]

Alexandre Benois described 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.»^[9]

The libretto was criticized as «lopsided»^[10] and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet,^[11] and many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until the Grand Pas de Deux near the end of the second act (which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program).^[10] Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt.^[4] 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».^[12] But this also was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene «ponderous» and the Grand Pas de Deux «insipid».^[13]

Subsequent productions[edit]

In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged 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.^{[14][unreliable source?]} In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged 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.^[4]

The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934,^[8] staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa’s original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952.^[15] Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged in New York City in 1940,^[16] Alexandra Fedorova – again, after Petipa’s version.^[8] The ballet’s first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944 by the San 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.^[17][8] After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented Nutcracker every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967, and 2004. The original Christensen version continues in Salt Lake City, where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by the Christensen-founded Ballet West.^[18]

The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine’s reworked staging of The Nutcracker in 1954.^[8] The performance of Maria Tallchief in 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 in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it.»^[19]

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 include Rudolf Nureyev’s 1963 production for the Royal Ballet, Yury Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, Fernand Nault for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens starting in 1964, Kent Stowell for Pacific Northwest Ballet starting in 1983, and Peter Wright for the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In recent years, revisionist productions, including those by Mark Morris, Matthew Bourne, and Mikhail Chemiakin have appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen’s revival, while Maurice 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.^[1]

Roles[edit]

The following extrapolation of the characters (in order of appearance) is drawn from an examination of the stage directions in the score.^[20]

Act I[edit]

Act II[edit]

Plot [edit]

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.^[5] In still other productions, such as Baryshnikov’s, Clara is Clara Stahlbaum rather than Clara Silberhaus.

Act I[edit]

Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home

The ballet is set on Christmas Eve, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor to decorate the beautiful Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once the tree is finished, the children are summoned. They stand in awe of the tree sparkling with candles and decorations.

The party begins.^[21] A march is played.^[22] Presents are given out to the children. Suddenly, as the owl-topped grandfather clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer— a local 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.^[23] 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 wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a little man, 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 her beloved nutcracker. As she reaches the little 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 mice begin to eat the gingerbread soldiers.

The nutcracker appears to lead the soldiers, 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.^[24]

Scene 2: A Pine Forest

The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome Prince.^[25] 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.^[26][27]

Act II[edit]

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,^[28][29] tea from China,^[30] and candy canes from Russia^[31] all dance for their amusement; Danish shepherdesses perform on their flutes;^[32] Mother Ginger has her children, the Polichinelles, emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz.^[33][34] To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance.^[35][36]

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».^[37] Just like Swan Lake, there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original.

Musical sources and influences[edit]

The Nutcracker is one of the composer’s most popular compositions. The music belongs to the Romantic period and 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 the Christmas season.^[38])

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 the Grand 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^[39]) 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.^[40] However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use, the ascending one in the Barcarolle from The Seasons.^[41]

Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with The Sleeping Beauty. (In the film Fantasia, commentator Deems Taylor observes that he «really detested» the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet^[42] (though he did write to a friend while composing it, «I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task»).^[43]

Instrumentation[edit]

The music is written for an orchestra with the following instrumentation.

Musical scenes[edit]

From the Imperial Ballet’s 1892 program[edit]

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-féerie in two acts and three tableaux with apotheosis.

Structure[edit]

List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along with tempo indications. Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892), the piano reduction score by Sergei Taneyev (1892), both published by P. Jurgenson in Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer’s works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.]^[44]

Scene	No.	English title	French title	Russian title	Tempo indication	Notes	Listen
Act I
		Miniature Overture	Ouverture miniature	Увертюра	Allegro giusto
Tableau I	1	Scene (The Christmas Tree)	Scène (L’arbre de Noël)	Сцена (Сцена украшения и зажигания ёлки)	Allegro non troppo – Più moderato – Allegro vivace	scene of decorating and lighting the Christmas tree
2	March (also March of the Toy Soldiers)	Marche	Марш	Tempo di marcia viva
3	Children’s Gallop and Dance of the Parents	Petit galop des enfants et Entrée des parents	Детский галоп и вход (танец) родителей	Presto – Andante – Allegro
4	Dance Scene (Arrival of Drosselmeyer)	Scène dansante	Сцена с танцами	Andantino – Allegro vivo – Andantino sostenuto – Più andante – Allegro molto vivace – Tempo di Valse – Presto	Drosselmeyer’s arrival and distribution of presents
5	Scene and Grandfather Waltz	Scène et danse du Gross-Vater	Сцена и танец Гросфатер	Andante – Andantino – Moderato assai – Andante – L’istesso tempo – Tempo di Gross-Vater – Allegro vivacissimo
6	Scene (Clara and the Nutcracker)	Scène	Сцена	Allegro semplice – Moderato con moto – Allegro giusto – Più allegro – Moderato assai	departure of the guests
7	Scene (The Battle)	Scène	Сцена	Allegro vivo
Tableau II	8	Scene (A Pine Forest in Winter)	Scène	Сцена	Andante	a.k.a. «Journey through the Snow»
9	Waltz of the Snowflakes	Valse des flocons de neige	Вальс снежных хлопьев	Tempo di Valse, ma con moto – Presto
Act II
Tableau III	10	Scene (The Magic Castle in the Land of Sweets)	Scène	Сцена	Andante	introduction
11	Scene (Clara and Nutcracker Prince)	Scène	Сцена	Andante con moto – Moderato – Allegro agitato – Poco più allegro – Tempo precedente	arrival of Clara and the Prince
12	Divertissement	Divertissement	Дивертисмент
a. Chocolate (Spanish Dance)	a. Le chocolat (Danse espagnole)	a. Шоколад (Испанский танец)	Allegro brillante
b. Coffee (Arabian Dance)	b. Le café (Danse arabe)	b. Кофе (Арабский танец)	Commodo
c. Tea (Chinese Dance)	c. Le thé (Danse chinoise)	c. Чай (Китайский танец)	Allegro moderato
d. Trepak (Russian Dance)	d. Trépak (Danse russe)	d. Трепак (русский танец, карамельная трость)[45]	Tempo di Trepak, Presto
e. Dance of the Reed Flutes	e. Les Mirlitons (Danse des Mirlitons)	e. Танец пастушков (Датский марципан)[45]	Andantino
f. Mother Ginger and the Polichinelles	f. La mère Gigogne et les polichinelles	f. Полишинели	Allegro giocoso – Andante – Allegro vivo
13	Waltz of the Flowers	Valse des fleurs	Вальс цветов	Tempo di Valse
14	Pas de Deux	Pas de deux	Па-де-дё
	a. Intrada (Sugar Plum Fairy and Her Cavalier)	a. La Fée-Dragée et le Prince Orgeat	a. Танец принца Оршада и Феи Драже	Andante maestoso
	b. Variation I: Tarantella	b. Variation I: Tarantelle (Pour le danseur)	b. Вариация I: Тарантелла	Tempo di Tarantella
	c. Variation II: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy	c. Variation II: Danse de la Fée-Dragée (Pour la danseuse)	c. Вариация II: Танец Феи Драже	Andante ma non troppo – Presto
	d. Coda	d. Coda	d. Кода	Vivace assai
15	Final Waltz and Apotheosis	Valse finale et Apothéose	Финальный вальс и Апофеоз	Tempo di Valse – Molto meno

Concert excerpts and arrangements[edit]

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a[edit]

Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet’s December 1892 première, forming The 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.^[46] The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere,^[47] while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City.^[48] The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney’s Fantasia, omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy . The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite made by the composer:

Grainger: Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz, for solo piano[edit]

The Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz is a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements from The Nutcracker by the pianist and composer Percy Grainger.

Pletnev: Concert suite from The Nutcracker, for solo piano[edit]

The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:

Contemporary arrangements[edit]

• In 1942, Freddy Martin and his orchestra recorded The Nutcracker Suite for Dance Orchestra on a set of 4 10-inch 78-RPM records. An arrangement of the suite that lay between dance music and jazz, it was released by RCA Victor.^[49]
• In 1947, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians recorded «The Nutcracker Suite» on a two-part Decca Records 12-inch 78 RPM record with one part on each side as Decca DU 90022,^[50] packaged in a picture sleeve. This version had custom lyrics written for Waring’s chorus by among others, Waring himself. The arrangements were by Harry Simeone.
• In 1952, the Les Brown big band recorded a version of the Nutcracker Suite, arranged by Frank Comstock, for Coral Records.^[51] Brown rerecorded the arrangement in stereo for his 1958 Capitol Records album Concert Modern.
• In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn composed jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky’s score, recorded and released on LP as The Nutcracker Suite.^[52] In 1999, this suite was supplemented with additional arrangements from the score by David Berger for The Harlem Nutcracker, a production of the ballet by choreographer Donald Byrd (born 1949) set during the Harlem Renaissance.^[53]
• In 1960, Shorty Rogers released The Swingin’ Nutcracker, featuring jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky’s score.
• In 1962, American poet and humorist Ogden Nash wrote verses inspired by the ballet,^[54] and these verses have sometimes been performed in concert versions of the Nutcracker Suite. It has been recorded with Peter Ustinov reciting the verses, and the music is unchanged from the original.^[55]
• In 1962 a novelty boogie piano arrangement of the «Marche», titled «Nut Rocker», was a No.1 single in the UK, and No.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, The Ventures, Dropkick Murphys, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The Ventures’ own instrumental rock cover of «Nut Rocker», known as «Nutty», is commonly connected to the NHL team, the Boston Bruins, from being used as the theme for the Bruins’ telecast games for over two decades, from the late 1960s. In 2004, The Invincible Czars arranged, recorded, and now annually perform the entire suite for rock band.
• The Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, includes an instrumental piece titled «A Mad Russian’s Christmas», which is a rock version of music from The Nutcracker.
• On the other end of the scale is the comedic Spike Jones version released in December 1945 as «Spike Jones presents for the Kiddies: The Nutcracker Suite (With Apologies to Tchaikovsky)», featuring humorous lyrics by Foster Carling and additional music by Joe «Country» Washburne. An abridged version was released in 1971 as part of the long play record Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics, one of the rare comedic pop records to be issued on the prestigious RCA Red Seal label.
• International choreographer Val Caniparoli has created several versions of The Nutcracker ballet for Louisville Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Grand Rapids Ballet.^[56] While his ballets remain classically rooted, he has contemporarized them with changes such as making Marie an adult instead of a child, or having Drosselmeir emerges through the clock face during the overture making «him more humorous and mischievous.»^[57] Caniparoli has been influenced by his simultaneous career as a dancer, having joined San Francisco Ballet in 1971 and performing as Drosselmeir and other various Nutcracker roles ever since that time.^[58]
• The Disco Biscuits, a trance-fusion jam band from Philadelphia, have performed «Waltz of the Flowers» and «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on multiple occasions.
• The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) recorded the Suite arranged for four acoustic guitars on their CD recording Dances from Renaissance to Nutcracker (1992, Delos).
• In 1993, guitarist Tim Sparks recorded his arrangements for acoustic guitar on The Nutcracker Suite.
• The Shirim Klezmer Orchestra released a klezmer version, titled «Klezmer Nutcracker,» in 1998 on the Newport label. The album became the basis for a December 2008 production by Ellen Kushner, titled The Klezmer Nutcracker and staged off-Broadway in New York City.^[59]
• In 2002, The Constructus Corporation used the melody of Sugar Plum Fairy for their track «Choose Your Own Adventure».
• In 2009, Pet Shop Boys used a melody from «March» for their track «All Over the World», taken from their album Yes.
• In 2012, jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen released his renditions of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Dance of the Reed Flutes, Russian Dance and Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite.
• In 2014, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on the holiday album That’s Christmas to Me and received a Grammy Award on 16 February 2016 for best arrangement.
• In 2016, Jennifer Thomas included an instrumental version of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on her album Winter Symphony.
• In 2017, Lindsey Stirling released her version of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on her holiday album Warmer in the Winter.^[60]
• In 2018, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of «Waltz of the Flowers» on the holiday album Christmas Is Here!.
• In 2019, Madonna sampled a portion on her song «Dark Ballet» from her Madame X album.^[61]
• In 2019, Mariah Carey released a normal and an a cappella version of ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ entitled the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy Introlude’ to open and close her 25th Deluxe Anniversary Edition of Merry Christmas.^[62]
• In 2020, Coone made a hardstyle cover version titled «The Nutcracker».^[63]

Selected discography[edit]

Many recordings have been made since 1909 of the Nutcracker Suite, which made its initial appearance on disc that year in what is now historically considered the first record album.^[64] This recording was conducted by Herman Finck and featured the London Palace Orchestra.^[65] But it was not until the LP album was developed that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because of the ballet’s approximate hour and a half length when performed without intermission, applause, or interpolated numbers, it fits very comfortably onto two LPs. Most CD recordings take up two discs, often with fillers. An exception is the 81-minute 1998 Philips recording by Valery Gergiev that fits onto one CD because of Gergiev’s somewhat brisker speeds.

• In 1954, the first complete recording of the ballet was released, a 2-LP set in mono sound released by Mercury Records. The cover design was by George Maas with illustrations by Dorothy Maas.^[66] The music was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Doráti. Doráti later re-recorded the complete ballet in stereo, with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1962 for Mercury and with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1975 for Philips Classics. According to Mercury Records, the 1962 recording was made on 35mm magnetic film rather than audio tape, and used album cover art identical to that of the 1954 recording.^[67][68] Dorati is the only conductor so far to have made three different recordings of the complete ballet. Some have hailed the 1975 recording as the finest ever made of the complete ballet.^[69] It is also faithful to the score in employing a boys’ choir in the Waltz of the Snowflakes. Many other recordings use an adult or mixed choir.
• In 1956, Artur Rodziński and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made a complete recording of the ballet in stereo for Westminster Records.
• In 1959, the first stereo LP album set of the complete ballet, with Ernest Ansermet conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, appeared on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US.
• The first complete stereo Nutcracker with a Russian conductor and a Russian orchestra appeared in 1960, when Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s recording of it, with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, was issued first in the Soviet Union on Melodiya, then imported to the U.S. on Columbia Masterworks. It was also Columbia Masterworks’ first complete Nutcracker.^[70]

With the advent of the stereo LP coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings of it have been made. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Semyon Bychkov, Alexander Vedernikov, Ondrej Lenard, Mikhail Pletnev, and most recently, Simon Rattle.^[71] A CD of excerpts from the Tilson Thomas version had as its album cover art a painting of Mikhail Baryshnikov in his Nutcracker costume; perhaps this was due to the fact that the Tilson Thomas recording was released by CBS Masterworks, and CBS had first telecast the Baryshnikov «Nutcracker».^[72]

• The soundtrack of the 1977 television production with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, featuring the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn, was issued in stereo on a CBS Masterworks 2 LP-set, but it has not appeared on CD. The LP soundtrack recording was, for a time, the only stereo version of the Baryshnikov Nutcracker available, since the show was originally telecast only in mono, and it was not until recently that it began to be telecast with stereo sound. The sound portion of the DVD is also in stereo.
• The first complete recording of the ballet in digital stereo was issued in 1985, on a two-CD RCA set featuring Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This album originally had no «filler», but it has recently been re-issued on a multi-CD set containing complete recordings of Tchaikovsky’s two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. This three-ballet album has now gone out of print.

There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, made within seven years of each other, and both were given soundtrack albums.

• The first theatrical film adaptation, made in 1985, is of the Pacific Northwest Ballet version, and was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. The music is played in this production by the London Symphony Orchestra. The film was directed by Carroll Ballard, who had never before directed a ballet film (and has not done so since). Patricia Barker played Clara in the fantasy sequences, and Vanessa Sharp played her in the Christmas party scene. Wade Walthall was the Nutcracker Prince.
• The second film adaptation was a 1993 film of the New York City Ballet version, titled George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, with David Zinman conducting the New York City Ballet Orchestra. The director was Emile Ardolino, who had won the Emmy, Obie, and Academy Awards for filming dance, and was to die of AIDS later that year. Principal dancers included the Balanchine muse Darci Kistler, who played the Sugar Plum Fairy, Heather Watts, Damian Woetzel, and Kyra Nichols. Two well-known actors also took part: Macaulay Culkin appeared as the Nutcracker/Prince, and Kevin Kline served as the offscreen narrator. The soundtrack features the interpolated number from The Sleeping Beauty that Balanchine used in the production, and the music is heard on the album in the order that it appears in the film, not in the order that it appears in the original ballet.^[73]
• Notable albums of excerpts from the ballet, rather than just the usual Nutcracker Suite, were recorded by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for Columbia Masterworks, and Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra (for RCA), as well as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (for Telarc) have also recorded albums of extended excerpts. The original edition of Michael Tilson Thomas’s version with the Philharmonia Orchestra on CBS Masterworks was complete, but is out of print;^[74] the currently available edition is abridged.^[75]

Neither Ormandy, Reiner, nor Fiedler ever recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel’s album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. Conductor Neeme Järvi has recorded act 2 of the ballet complete, along with excerpts from Swan Lake. The music is played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.^[76]

• Many famous conductors of the twentieth century made recordings of the suite, but not of the complete ballet. These include Arturo Toscanini, Sir Thomas Beecham, Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Sir Neville Marriner, Robert Shaw, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Georg Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Zubin Mehta, and John Williams.
• In 2007, Josh Perschbacher recorded an organ transcription of the Nutcracker Suite.

Ethnic stereotypes and US activism[edit]

In 2013, Dance Magazine printed the opinions of three directors. Ronald Alexander of Steps on Broadway and The Harlem School of the Arts said the characters in some of the dances were «borderline caricatures, if not downright demeaning». He also said some productions had made changes to improve this. In the Arabian dance, for example, it was not necessary to portray a woman as a «seductress», showing too much skin. Alexander tried a more positive portrayal of the Chinese, but this was replaced by the more traditional version, despite positive reception. Stoner Winslett of the Richmond Ballet said The Nutcracker was not racist and that her productions had a «diverse cast». Donald Byrd of Spectrum Dance Theater saw the ballet as Eurocentric and not racist.^[77] Chloe Angyal, in Feministing, referred to «unbelievably offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes». 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».^[78] According to George Balanchine, «Coffee» was a sensuous belly dance intended for the fathers, not the children.^[79]

In The New Republic in 2014, Alice Robb described white people wearing «harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted» and «wearing chopsticks in their black wigs» in the Chinese dance. The Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who «slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles».^[78] One of the problems, Robb said, was the use of white people to play ethnic roles, because of the directors’ desire for everyone to look the same.^[78]

Among the attempts to change the dances were Austin McCormick making the Arabian dance into a pole dance, and San Francisco Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater changing the Chinese dance to a dragon dance.^[78]

Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times defended Tchaikovsky, saying he «never intended his Chinese and Arabian music to be ethnographically correct».^[80] He said, «their extraordinary color and energy are far from condescending, and they make the world of ‘The Nutcracker’ larger.»^[80] To change anything is to «unbalance The Nutcracker» with music the author did not write. If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia.^[80] Moreover, the Votkinsk-born composer is perceived as a part of cultural heritage of Finnic peoples (non-Indo-European).^{[81][82][failed verification]}

University of California, Irvine professor Jennifer Fisher said in 2018 that a two-finger salute^[which?] used in the Chinese dance was not a part of the culture. Though it might have had its source in a Mongolian chopstick dance, she called it «heedless insensitivity to stereotyping». She also complained about the use in the Chinese dance of «bobbing, subservient ‘kowtow’ steps, Fu Manchu mustaches, and … yellowface» makeup, compared to blackface. One concern she had was that dancers believed they were learning about Asian culture, when they were really experiencing a cartoon version.^[83]

Fisher went on to say some ballet companies were recognizing that change had to happen. Georgina Pazcoguin of the New York City Ballet and 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 drop geisha wigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed.^[83]

In popular culture[edit]

Film[edit]

Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:

• The 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia features a segment using The Nutcracker Suite. This version was also included both as part of the 3-LP soundtrack album of Fantasia (since released as a 2-CD set), and as a single LP, with Dance of the Hours, another Fantasia segment, on the reverse side.^[84][85]
• The Spirit of Christmas, a 1950 marionette made-for-TV featurette in color narrated by Alexander Scourby, utilizes the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, and this sequence also includes music from The Nutcracker.
• A 1951 thirty-minute short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen, issued on DVD by Something Weird Video, features several dances from The Nutcracker.^[86]
• The Nutcracker (1973) features a nameless girl (slightly similar to Clara) who works as a maid. She befriends and falls in love with a nutcracker ornament, who was a young prince cursed by the three headed Mouse King.
• Sanrio released a stop-motion adaptation of The Nutcracker entitled Nutcracker Fantasy in 1979.
• In 1988, Care Bears Nutcracker Suite was produced by the Canadian animation studio Nelvana and featured the Care Bears characters.
• A 1990 animated film titled The Nutcracker Prince was released and distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures and uses cuts of the music throughout and its story is based heavily on that of the ballet.
• A 1999 animated film titled The Nuttiest Nutcracker featured the voices of Cheech Marin, Jim Belushi, and Phyllis Diller, and followed a group of anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables.
• In 2001, Barbie appeared in her first film, Barbie in the Nutcracker. It used excerpts by Tchaikovsky, which were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Though it heavily altered the story, it still made use of ballet sequences which had been rotoscoped using real ballet dancers.^[87]
• In 2007, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale also used The Nutcracker excerpts, which were performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
• Disney announced that a remake of The Nutcracker would be directed by Robert Zemeckis through the use of motion capture, a technique that was used in The Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. The film was cancelled following the box office disappointment of Mars Needs Moms.
• In 2010, The Nutcracker in 3D with Elle Fanning abandoned the ballet and most of the story, retaining much of Tchaikovsky’s music with lyrics by Tim Rice. The $90 million film became the year’s biggest box office bomb.
• In 2016, the Hallmark Channel presented A Nutcracker Christmas; a tele-film that contains a number of selected scenes of the 1892 two-act Nutcracker ballet.
• In 2017, the Athens State Orchestra in collaboration with Cinecreed productions (former name: 1895 cinematic creations) presented «A Different Nutcracker» animation film, directed by Yiorgos Molvalis. At the premiere (Chr. Lamprakis, Athens Concert Hall, December 26, 2017) as Silent animation, the film was recorded live by the Athens State Orchestra. In 2020 the official recording was integrated in to the film marking its completion and making it available for screenings without the need to have the orchestra present.
• In 2018, the Disney live-action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was released with Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston as directors and a script by Ashleigh Powell.^[88][89]

Television[edit]

• A 1954 Christmas episode of General Electric Theater featured Fred Waring and his choral group, the Pennsylvanians, singing excerpts from The Nutcracker with specially written lyrics. While the music was being sung, the audience saw ballet dancers performing.^[90] The episode was hosted by Ronald Reagan.
• The 1987 true crime miniseries Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder opens every episode with the first notes of the ballet amid scenes of Frances Schreuder’s daughter dancing to it in ballet dress.
• «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays in the gabian dubbing version of El Chapulín Colorado episode «El Mistério Del Hombre De Las Nieves» while Chapolin and his friends Carlos and Florinda use sleeping bags for themselves to sleep at home until the music is interrupted after a fake yeti invades the house to scare them.
• Garfield and Friends episode, «Caped Avenger», «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays briefly while a shadow kidnaps Pooky.
• The «Toon TV» episode of Tiny Toon Adventures features an arcade-themed song called «Video Game Blues», set to «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» and «The Russian Dance».
• Batman: The Animated Series episode, «Christmas with the Joker», The Joker plays, «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy», and later, «The Russian Dance» on a record player to distract Batman and Robin.
• A 1996 episode of The Magic School Bus («Holiday Special», season 3, episode 39), Wanda is planning to see a performance of The Nutcracker. Some of the music for this episode was based on the score of the ballet.^[91]
• The Mickey Mouse Works «MouseTales» segment, the House of Mouse episode, «Pete’s Christmas Caper», and the feature film, Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse, with Mickey Mouse playing the role of the Nutcraker, Minnie Mouse as Maria, Donald Duck as the King Mouse, Goofy as the Magical Snow Fairy, and Ludwig Von Drake as Godpapa Drosselmeyer.
• The Barney & Friends TV Christmas episode features its own version of the Nutcracker with Barney the Dinosaur as the narrator, dressed up in a tuxedo vest and matching cuffs.
• Princess Tutu, a 2002 anime series that uses elements from many ballets as both music and as part of the storyline, uses the music from The Nutcracker in many places throughout its run, including using an arranged version of the overture as the theme for the main character. Both the first and last episodes feature The Nutcracker as their ‘theme’, and one of the main characters is named Drosselmeyer.
• An arrangement of this the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy can be heard in Episode 8 of Girls und Panzer.
• Arrangements of the Waltz of the flowers can be heard in Episode 7 of Guilty Crown.
• The 2015 Canadian television film The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale, based on an autobiographical short story by onetime Canadian ballet student Vickie Fagan, centres on a young ballet student preparing to dance the role of Clara in a production of The Nutcracker.

Video games[edit]

• In the NES version of Tetris, the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is available as background music (referred to in the settings as «Music 1»), and the same arrangement was later remixed for the Game Boy Advance version of Tetris Worlds.
• In the NES game Winter Games, «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as the music for the figure skating event.
• In the game BioShock, the main character Jack meets an insane musician named Sander Cohen who tasks Jack with killing and photographing four of Sander’s ex-disciples. When the third photograph is given to Sander, in a fit of pique he unleashes waves of splicer enemies to attack Jack while playing «Waltz of the Flowers» from speakers in the area.
• In the original Lemmings «Dance of the Reed Flutes» and «Miniature Overture» is used in several levels.
• In Weird Dreams, there is also a plus sized ballerina dancing to the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» in the Hall of Tubes.
• In the Baby Bowser levels of Yoshi’s Story, a variation of the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is used as the background music.
• In Mega Man Legends, the «Waltz of the Flowers» can be heard in the Balloon Fantasy minigame.
• In Crash Tag Team Racing, the «Trepak» are the background themes played during Tire & Ice track as a part with «Kalinka» and «Hungarian Dance No. 5».
• In the Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as optional background music for the figure skating event. In the Nintendo DS version, the «Marche» and «Trepak» are used.^[92]
• In Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance the «Waltz of Flowers», «The Arabian Dance», «The Russian Dance», «The Dance of the Reed Flutes» and «The Chinese Dance» are the background themes that play when Riku is in the world based on Disney’s Fantasia.
• In Hatoful Boyfriend, the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is used as the character theme for Iwamine Shuu.
• In a TV advertisement for Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2, the plastic army men work together using a train playset to move a firecracker under the Christmas tree and place it between the Nutcracker doll’s legs, while «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays.
• In Fantasia: Music Evolved, a medley of «The Nutcracker» is listed and consists of the «Marche», «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy», and «Trepak»; besides the original mix, there is also the «D00 BAH D00» mix and the «DC Breaks» mix.
• In Dynamite Headdy, the «March» is used in the Mad Dog boss battle.
• In Grand Theft Auto V one of the classical horns, that can be bought for cars, plays the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy».^[93]
• The «Waltz of the Flowers» appears during a baby’s death scene in What Remains of Edith Finch.
• In the game «Cell to Singularity,» «Waltz of the Flowers» is heard in the background when new creatures are created.
• In LittleBigPlanet 3, a remix of «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as background music in the level «Tutu Tango» and is an unlockable music track in Create Mode.
• The «Kids Mode» of Just Dance 2021 and Just Dance 2022 features the song «Dance of the Mirlitons» on the soundtrack.

Children’s recordings[edit]

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 titled The Nutcracker Suite for Children, narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcer Milton Cross, which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a 78-RPM album set in the 1940s.^[94] For the children’s label Peter Pan Records, actor Victor Jory narrated a condensed adaptation of the story with excerpts from the score. It was released on one side of a 45-RPM disc.^[95] A later version, titled The Nutcracker Suite, starred Denise Bryer and 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 story The 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 the Tale Spinners for Children series.^[96]

Spike Jones produced 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 ^[97]

Journalism[edit]

• In 2009, Pulitzer Prize–winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman wrote a series of articles for The Washington Post criticizing the primacy of The Nutcracker in the American repertory for stunting the creative evolution of ballet in the United States:^{[98][99][100]}

That warm and welcoming veneer of domestic bliss in The Nutcracker gives the appearance that all is just plummy in the ballet world. But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country… companies are so cautious in their programming that they have effectively reduced an art form to a rotation of over-roasted chestnuts that no one can justifiably croon about… The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become. There were moments throughout the 20th century when ballet was brave. When it threw bold punches at its own conventions. First among these was the Ballets Russes period, when ballet—ballet—lassoed the avant-garde art movement and, with works such as Michel Fokine’s fashionably sexy Scheherazade (1910) and Léonide Massine’s Cubist-inspired Parade (1917), made world capitals sit up and take notice. Afraid of scandal? Not these free-thinkers; Vaslav Nijinsky’s rough-hewn, aggressive Rite of Spring famously put Paris in an uproar in 1913… Where are this century’s provocations? Has ballet become so entwined with its «Nutcracker» image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?^[99]

• In 2010, Alastair Macaulay, dance critic for The New York Times (who had previously taken Kaufman to task for her criticism of The Nutcracker^[101]) began The Nutcracker Chronicles, a series of blog articles documenting his travels across the United States to see different productions of the ballet.^[102]

Act I of The Nutcracker ends with snow falling and snowflakes dancing. Yet The Nutcracker is now seasonal entertainment even in parts of America where snow seldom falls: Hawaii, the California coast, Florida. Over the last 70 years this ballet—conceived in the Old World—has become an American institution. Its amalgam of children, parents, toys, a Christmas tree, snow, sweets and Tchaikovsky’s astounding score is integral to the season of good will that runs from Thanksgiving to New Year… I am a European who lives in America, and I never saw any Nutcracker until I was 21. Since then I’ve seen it many times. The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art. So this year I’m running a Nutcracker marathon: taking in as many different American productions as I can reasonably manage in November and December, from coast to coast (more than 20, if all goes well). America is a country I’m still discovering; let The Nutcracker be part of my research.^[103]

• In 2014, Ellen O’Connell, who trained with the Royal Ballet in London, wrote, in Salon (website), on the darker side of The Nutcracker story. In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original story, the Nutcracker and Mouse King, Marie’s (Clara’s), journey becomes a fevered delirium that transports her to a land where she sees sparkling Christmas Forests and Marzipan Castles, but in a world populated with dolls.^[104] Hoffmann’s tales were so bizarre, Sigmund Freud wrote about them in The Uncanny.^[105][106]

E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 fairy tale, on which the ballet is based, is troubling: Marie, a young girl, falls in love with a nutcracker doll, whom she only sees come alive when she falls asleep. …Marie falls, ostensibly in a fevered dream, into a glass cabinet, cutting her arm badly. She hears stories of trickery, deceit, a rodent mother avenging her children’s death, and a character who must never fall asleep (but of course does, with disastrous consequences). While she heals from her wound, the mouse king brainwashes her in her sleep. Her family forbids her from speaking of her «dreams» anymore, but when she vows to love even an ugly nutcracker, he comes alive and she marries him.

Popular music[edit]

• The song «Dance Mystique» (track B1) on the studio album Bach to the Blues (1964) by the Ramsey Lewis Trio is a jazz adaptation of Coffee (Arabian Dance).
• The song «Fall Out» by English band Mansun from their 1998 album Six heavily relies on the celesta theme from the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
• The song «Dark Ballet» by American singer-songwriter Madonna samples the melody of Dance of the Reed Flutes (Danish Marzipan) which is often mistaken for Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The song also relied on the lesser-known harp cadenza from Waltz of the Flowers. The same Tchaikovsky sample was earlier used in internationally famous 1992 ads for Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut with ‘Madonna’ as the singing chocolate bar (in Russian version the subtitles «‘This Is Madonna'» (Russian: Это Мадонна, tr. Eto Madonna) were displayed on a screen.^[107]

See also[edit]

• Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Nutcracker (ballet): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• The Nutcracker (suite): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Tchaikovsky Research
• The Nutcracker ballet

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик^[a], tr. Shchelkunchik listen (help·info)) is an 1892 two-act «fairy ballet» (Russian: балет-феерия, balet-feyeriya) set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child’s imagination. The music is by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 71. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet’s first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.

Since the late 1960s, it has been danced by countless ballet companies, especially in North America.^[1] Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker.^[2][3] The ballet’s 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 the celesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891).

Composition[edit]

After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 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 be Iolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story «The Nutcracker and the Mouse King», by Alexandre Dumas called «The Story of a Nutcracker».^[4] The plot of Hoffmann’s story (and Dumas’ adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann’s tale contains a long flashback story 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.^[5]

Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars.^[4] 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 of Carnegie Hall.^[6] Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen, France.^[7]

History[edit]

Saint Petersburg premiere[edit]

The first performance of The Nutcracker was not deemed a success.^[8] The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. Although some critics praised Dell’Era on her pointework as 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.^[9]

Alexandre Benois described 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.»^[9]

The libretto was criticized as «lopsided»^[10] and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet,^[11] and many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until the Grand Pas de Deux near the end of the second act (which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program).^[10] Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt.^[4] 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».^[12] But this also was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene «ponderous» and the Grand Pas de Deux «insipid».^[13]

Subsequent productions[edit]

In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged 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.^{[14][unreliable source?]} In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged 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.^[4]

The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934,^[8] staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa’s original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952.^[15] Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged in New York City in 1940,^[16] Alexandra Fedorova – again, after Petipa’s version.^[8] The ballet’s first complete United States performance was on 24 December 1944 by the San 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.^[17][8] After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented Nutcracker every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967, and 2004. The original Christensen version continues in Salt Lake City, where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by the Christensen-founded Ballet West.^[18]

The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine’s reworked staging of The Nutcracker in 1954.^[8] The performance of Maria Tallchief in 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 in The Nutcracker, one is tempted to doubt it.»^[19]

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 include Rudolf Nureyev’s 1963 production for the Royal Ballet, Yury Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, Fernand Nault for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens starting in 1964, Kent Stowell for Pacific Northwest Ballet starting in 1983, and Peter Wright for the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In recent years, revisionist productions, including those by Mark Morris, Matthew Bourne, and Mikhail Chemiakin have appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen’s revival, while Maurice 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.^[1]

Roles[edit]

The following extrapolation of the characters (in order of appearance) is drawn from an examination of the stage directions in the score.^[20]

Act I[edit]

Act II[edit]

Plot [edit]

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.^[5] In still other productions, such as Baryshnikov’s, Clara is Clara Stahlbaum rather than Clara Silberhaus.

Act I[edit]

Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home

The ballet is set on Christmas Eve, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor to decorate the beautiful Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once the tree is finished, the children are summoned. They stand in awe of the tree sparkling with candles and decorations.

The party begins.^[21] A march is played.^[22] Presents are given out to the children. Suddenly, as the owl-topped grandfather clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer— a local 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.^[23] 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 wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a little man, 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 her beloved nutcracker. As she reaches the little 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 mice begin to eat the gingerbread soldiers.

The nutcracker appears to lead the soldiers, 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.^[24]

Scene 2: A Pine Forest

The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome Prince.^[25] 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.^[26][27]

Act II[edit]

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,^[28][29] tea from China,^[30] and candy canes from Russia^[31] all dance for their amusement; Danish shepherdesses perform on their flutes;^[32] Mother Ginger has her children, the Polichinelles, emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz.^[33][34] To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance.^[35][36]

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».^[37] Just like Swan Lake, there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original.

Musical sources and influences[edit]

The Nutcracker is one of the composer’s most popular compositions. The music belongs to the Romantic period and 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 the Christmas season.^[38])

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 the Grand 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^[39]) 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.^[40] However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use, the ascending one in the Barcarolle from The Seasons.^[41]

Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with The Sleeping Beauty. (In the film Fantasia, commentator Deems Taylor observes that he «really detested» the score.) Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet^[42] (though he did write to a friend while composing it, «I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task»).^[43]

Instrumentation[edit]

The music is written for an orchestra with the following instrumentation.

Musical scenes[edit]

From the Imperial Ballet’s 1892 program[edit]

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-féerie in two acts and three tableaux with apotheosis.

Structure[edit]

List of acts, scenes (tableaux) and musical numbers, along with tempo indications. Numbers are given according to the original Russian and French titles of the first edition score (1892), the piano reduction score by Sergei Taneyev (1892), both published by P. Jurgenson in Moscow, and the Soviet collected edition of the composer’s works, as reprinted Melville, New York: Belwin Mills [n.d.]^[44]

Scene	No.	English title	French title	Russian title	Tempo indication	Notes	Listen
Act I
		Miniature Overture	Ouverture miniature	Увертюра	Allegro giusto
Tableau I	1	Scene (The Christmas Tree)	Scène (L’arbre de Noël)	Сцена (Сцена украшения и зажигания ёлки)	Allegro non troppo – Più moderato – Allegro vivace	scene of decorating and lighting the Christmas tree
2	March (also March of the Toy Soldiers)	Marche	Марш	Tempo di marcia viva
3	Children’s Gallop and Dance of the Parents	Petit galop des enfants et Entrée des parents	Детский галоп и вход (танец) родителей	Presto – Andante – Allegro
4	Dance Scene (Arrival of Drosselmeyer)	Scène dansante	Сцена с танцами	Andantino – Allegro vivo – Andantino sostenuto – Più andante – Allegro molto vivace – Tempo di Valse – Presto	Drosselmeyer’s arrival and distribution of presents
5	Scene and Grandfather Waltz	Scène et danse du Gross-Vater	Сцена и танец Гросфатер	Andante – Andantino – Moderato assai – Andante – L’istesso tempo – Tempo di Gross-Vater – Allegro vivacissimo
6	Scene (Clara and the Nutcracker)	Scène	Сцена	Allegro semplice – Moderato con moto – Allegro giusto – Più allegro – Moderato assai	departure of the guests
7	Scene (The Battle)	Scène	Сцена	Allegro vivo
Tableau II	8	Scene (A Pine Forest in Winter)	Scène	Сцена	Andante	a.k.a. «Journey through the Snow»
9	Waltz of the Snowflakes	Valse des flocons de neige	Вальс снежных хлопьев	Tempo di Valse, ma con moto – Presto
Act II
Tableau III	10	Scene (The Magic Castle in the Land of Sweets)	Scène	Сцена	Andante	introduction
11	Scene (Clara and Nutcracker Prince)	Scène	Сцена	Andante con moto – Moderato – Allegro agitato – Poco più allegro – Tempo precedente	arrival of Clara and the Prince
12	Divertissement	Divertissement	Дивертисмент
a. Chocolate (Spanish Dance)	a. Le chocolat (Danse espagnole)	a. Шоколад (Испанский танец)	Allegro brillante
b. Coffee (Arabian Dance)	b. Le café (Danse arabe)	b. Кофе (Арабский танец)	Commodo
c. Tea (Chinese Dance)	c. Le thé (Danse chinoise)	c. Чай (Китайский танец)	Allegro moderato
d. Trepak (Russian Dance)	d. Trépak (Danse russe)	d. Трепак (русский танец, карамельная трость)[45]	Tempo di Trepak, Presto
e. Dance of the Reed Flutes	e. Les Mirlitons (Danse des Mirlitons)	e. Танец пастушков (Датский марципан)[45]	Andantino
f. Mother Ginger and the Polichinelles	f. La mère Gigogne et les polichinelles	f. Полишинели	Allegro giocoso – Andante – Allegro vivo
13	Waltz of the Flowers	Valse des fleurs	Вальс цветов	Tempo di Valse
14	Pas de Deux	Pas de deux	Па-де-дё
	a. Intrada (Sugar Plum Fairy and Her Cavalier)	a. La Fée-Dragée et le Prince Orgeat	a. Танец принца Оршада и Феи Драже	Andante maestoso
	b. Variation I: Tarantella	b. Variation I: Tarantelle (Pour le danseur)	b. Вариация I: Тарантелла	Tempo di Tarantella
	c. Variation II: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy	c. Variation II: Danse de la Fée-Dragée (Pour la danseuse)	c. Вариация II: Танец Феи Драже	Andante ma non troppo – Presto
	d. Coda	d. Coda	d. Кода	Vivace assai
15	Final Waltz and Apotheosis	Valse finale et Apothéose	Финальный вальс и Апофеоз	Tempo di Valse – Molto meno

Concert excerpts and arrangements[edit]

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a[edit]

Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet’s December 1892 première, forming The 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.^[46] The suite became instantly popular, with almost every number encored at its premiere,^[47] while the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City.^[48] The suite became very popular on the concert stage, and was excerpted in Disney’s Fantasia, omitting the two movements prior to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy . The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite made by the composer:

Grainger: Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz, for solo piano[edit]

The Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz is a successful piano arrangement from one of the movements from The Nutcracker by the pianist and composer Percy Grainger.

Pletnev: Concert suite from The Nutcracker, for solo piano[edit]

The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:

Contemporary arrangements[edit]

• In 1942, Freddy Martin and his orchestra recorded The Nutcracker Suite for Dance Orchestra on a set of 4 10-inch 78-RPM records. An arrangement of the suite that lay between dance music and jazz, it was released by RCA Victor.^[49]
• In 1947, Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians recorded «The Nutcracker Suite» on a two-part Decca Records 12-inch 78 RPM record with one part on each side as Decca DU 90022,^[50] packaged in a picture sleeve. This version had custom lyrics written for Waring’s chorus by among others, Waring himself. The arrangements were by Harry Simeone.
• In 1952, the Les Brown big band recorded a version of the Nutcracker Suite, arranged by Frank Comstock, for Coral Records.^[51] Brown rerecorded the arrangement in stereo for his 1958 Capitol Records album Concert Modern.
• In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn composed jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky’s score, recorded and released on LP as The Nutcracker Suite.^[52] In 1999, this suite was supplemented with additional arrangements from the score by David Berger for The Harlem Nutcracker, a production of the ballet by choreographer Donald Byrd (born 1949) set during the Harlem Renaissance.^[53]
• In 1960, Shorty Rogers released The Swingin’ Nutcracker, featuring jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky’s score.
• In 1962, American poet and humorist Ogden Nash wrote verses inspired by the ballet,^[54] and these verses have sometimes been performed in concert versions of the Nutcracker Suite. It has been recorded with Peter Ustinov reciting the verses, and the music is unchanged from the original.^[55]
• In 1962 a novelty boogie piano arrangement of the «Marche», titled «Nut Rocker», was a No.1 single in the UK, and No.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, The Ventures, Dropkick Murphys, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The Ventures’ own instrumental rock cover of «Nut Rocker», known as «Nutty», is commonly connected to the NHL team, the Boston Bruins, from being used as the theme for the Bruins’ telecast games for over two decades, from the late 1960s. In 2004, The Invincible Czars arranged, recorded, and now annually perform the entire suite for rock band.
• The Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, includes an instrumental piece titled «A Mad Russian’s Christmas», which is a rock version of music from The Nutcracker.
• On the other end of the scale is the comedic Spike Jones version released in December 1945 as «Spike Jones presents for the Kiddies: The Nutcracker Suite (With Apologies to Tchaikovsky)», featuring humorous lyrics by Foster Carling and additional music by Joe «Country» Washburne. An abridged version was released in 1971 as part of the long play record Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics, one of the rare comedic pop records to be issued on the prestigious RCA Red Seal label.
• International choreographer Val Caniparoli has created several versions of The Nutcracker ballet for Louisville Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Grand Rapids Ballet.^[56] While his ballets remain classically rooted, he has contemporarized them with changes such as making Marie an adult instead of a child, or having Drosselmeir emerges through the clock face during the overture making «him more humorous and mischievous.»^[57] Caniparoli has been influenced by his simultaneous career as a dancer, having joined San Francisco Ballet in 1971 and performing as Drosselmeir and other various Nutcracker roles ever since that time.^[58]
• The Disco Biscuits, a trance-fusion jam band from Philadelphia, have performed «Waltz of the Flowers» and «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on multiple occasions.
• The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) recorded the Suite arranged for four acoustic guitars on their CD recording Dances from Renaissance to Nutcracker (1992, Delos).
• In 1993, guitarist Tim Sparks recorded his arrangements for acoustic guitar on The Nutcracker Suite.
• The Shirim Klezmer Orchestra released a klezmer version, titled «Klezmer Nutcracker,» in 1998 on the Newport label. The album became the basis for a December 2008 production by Ellen Kushner, titled The Klezmer Nutcracker and staged off-Broadway in New York City.^[59]
• In 2002, The Constructus Corporation used the melody of Sugar Plum Fairy for their track «Choose Your Own Adventure».
• In 2009, Pet Shop Boys used a melody from «March» for their track «All Over the World», taken from their album Yes.
• In 2012, jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen released his renditions of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Dance of the Reed Flutes, Russian Dance and Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker Suite.
• In 2014, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on the holiday album That’s Christmas to Me and received a Grammy Award on 16 February 2016 for best arrangement.
• In 2016, Jennifer Thomas included an instrumental version of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on her album Winter Symphony.
• In 2017, Lindsey Stirling released her version of «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» on her holiday album Warmer in the Winter.^[60]
• In 2018, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of «Waltz of the Flowers» on the holiday album Christmas Is Here!.
• In 2019, Madonna sampled a portion on her song «Dark Ballet» from her Madame X album.^[61]
• In 2019, Mariah Carey released a normal and an a cappella version of ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ entitled the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy Introlude’ to open and close her 25th Deluxe Anniversary Edition of Merry Christmas.^[62]
• In 2020, Coone made a hardstyle cover version titled «The Nutcracker».^[63]

Selected discography[edit]

Many recordings have been made since 1909 of the Nutcracker Suite, which made its initial appearance on disc that year in what is now historically considered the first record album.^[64] This recording was conducted by Herman Finck and featured the London Palace Orchestra.^[65] But it was not until the LP album was developed that recordings of the complete ballet began to be made. Because of the ballet’s approximate hour and a half length when performed without intermission, applause, or interpolated numbers, it fits very comfortably onto two LPs. Most CD recordings take up two discs, often with fillers. An exception is the 81-minute 1998 Philips recording by Valery Gergiev that fits onto one CD because of Gergiev’s somewhat brisker speeds.

• In 1954, the first complete recording of the ballet was released, a 2-LP set in mono sound released by Mercury Records. The cover design was by George Maas with illustrations by Dorothy Maas.^[66] The music was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Doráti. Doráti later re-recorded the complete ballet in stereo, with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1962 for Mercury and with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1975 for Philips Classics. According to Mercury Records, the 1962 recording was made on 35mm magnetic film rather than audio tape, and used album cover art identical to that of the 1954 recording.^[67][68] Dorati is the only conductor so far to have made three different recordings of the complete ballet. Some have hailed the 1975 recording as the finest ever made of the complete ballet.^[69] It is also faithful to the score in employing a boys’ choir in the Waltz of the Snowflakes. Many other recordings use an adult or mixed choir.
• In 1956, Artur Rodziński and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra made a complete recording of the ballet in stereo for Westminster Records.
• In 1959, the first stereo LP album set of the complete ballet, with Ernest Ansermet conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, appeared on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US.
• The first complete stereo Nutcracker with a Russian conductor and a Russian orchestra appeared in 1960, when Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s recording of it, with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, was issued first in the Soviet Union on Melodiya, then imported to the U.S. on Columbia Masterworks. It was also Columbia Masterworks’ first complete Nutcracker.^[70]

With the advent of the stereo LP coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings of it have been made. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, André Previn, Michael Tilson Thomas, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Semyon Bychkov, Alexander Vedernikov, Ondrej Lenard, Mikhail Pletnev, and most recently, Simon Rattle.^[71] A CD of excerpts from the Tilson Thomas version had as its album cover art a painting of Mikhail Baryshnikov in his Nutcracker costume; perhaps this was due to the fact that the Tilson Thomas recording was released by CBS Masterworks, and CBS had first telecast the Baryshnikov «Nutcracker».^[72]

• The soundtrack of the 1977 television production with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, featuring the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn, was issued in stereo on a CBS Masterworks 2 LP-set, but it has not appeared on CD. The LP soundtrack recording was, for a time, the only stereo version of the Baryshnikov Nutcracker available, since the show was originally telecast only in mono, and it was not until recently that it began to be telecast with stereo sound. The sound portion of the DVD is also in stereo.
• The first complete recording of the ballet in digital stereo was issued in 1985, on a two-CD RCA set featuring Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This album originally had no «filler», but it has recently been re-issued on a multi-CD set containing complete recordings of Tchaikovsky’s two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. This three-ballet album has now gone out of print.

There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, made within seven years of each other, and both were given soundtrack albums.

• The first theatrical film adaptation, made in 1985, is of the Pacific Northwest Ballet version, and was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. The music is played in this production by the London Symphony Orchestra. The film was directed by Carroll Ballard, who had never before directed a ballet film (and has not done so since). Patricia Barker played Clara in the fantasy sequences, and Vanessa Sharp played her in the Christmas party scene. Wade Walthall was the Nutcracker Prince.
• The second film adaptation was a 1993 film of the New York City Ballet version, titled George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, with David Zinman conducting the New York City Ballet Orchestra. The director was Emile Ardolino, who had won the Emmy, Obie, and Academy Awards for filming dance, and was to die of AIDS later that year. Principal dancers included the Balanchine muse Darci Kistler, who played the Sugar Plum Fairy, Heather Watts, Damian Woetzel, and Kyra Nichols. Two well-known actors also took part: Macaulay Culkin appeared as the Nutcracker/Prince, and Kevin Kline served as the offscreen narrator. The soundtrack features the interpolated number from The Sleeping Beauty that Balanchine used in the production, and the music is heard on the album in the order that it appears in the film, not in the order that it appears in the original ballet.^[73]
• Notable albums of excerpts from the ballet, rather than just the usual Nutcracker Suite, were recorded by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for Columbia Masterworks, and Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra (for RCA), as well as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (for Telarc) have also recorded albums of extended excerpts. The original edition of Michael Tilson Thomas’s version with the Philharmonia Orchestra on CBS Masterworks was complete, but is out of print;^[74] the currently available edition is abridged.^[75]

Neither Ormandy, Reiner, nor Fiedler ever recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel’s album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. Conductor Neeme Järvi has recorded act 2 of the ballet complete, along with excerpts from Swan Lake. The music is played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.^[76]

• Many famous conductors of the twentieth century made recordings of the suite, but not of the complete ballet. These include Arturo Toscanini, Sir Thomas Beecham, Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Sir Neville Marriner, Robert Shaw, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Georg Solti, Leopold Stokowski, Zubin Mehta, and John Williams.
• In 2007, Josh Perschbacher recorded an organ transcription of the Nutcracker Suite.

Ethnic stereotypes and US activism[edit]

In 2013, Dance Magazine printed the opinions of three directors. Ronald Alexander of Steps on Broadway and The Harlem School of the Arts said the characters in some of the dances were «borderline caricatures, if not downright demeaning». He also said some productions had made changes to improve this. In the Arabian dance, for example, it was not necessary to portray a woman as a «seductress», showing too much skin. Alexander tried a more positive portrayal of the Chinese, but this was replaced by the more traditional version, despite positive reception. Stoner Winslett of the Richmond Ballet said The Nutcracker was not racist and that her productions had a «diverse cast». Donald Byrd of Spectrum Dance Theater saw the ballet as Eurocentric and not racist.^[77] Chloe Angyal, in Feministing, referred to «unbelievably offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes». 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».^[78] According to George Balanchine, «Coffee» was a sensuous belly dance intended for the fathers, not the children.^[79]

In The New Republic in 2014, Alice Robb described white people wearing «harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted» and «wearing chopsticks in their black wigs» in the Chinese dance. The Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who «slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles».^[78] One of the problems, Robb said, was the use of white people to play ethnic roles, because of the directors’ desire for everyone to look the same.^[78]

Among the attempts to change the dances were Austin McCormick making the Arabian dance into a pole dance, and San Francisco Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater changing the Chinese dance to a dragon dance.^[78]

Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times defended Tchaikovsky, saying he «never intended his Chinese and Arabian music to be ethnographically correct».^[80] He said, «their extraordinary color and energy are far from condescending, and they make the world of ‘The Nutcracker’ larger.»^[80] To change anything is to «unbalance The Nutcracker» with music the author did not write. If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia.^[80] Moreover, the Votkinsk-born composer is perceived as a part of cultural heritage of Finnic peoples (non-Indo-European).^{[81][82][failed verification]}

University of California, Irvine professor Jennifer Fisher said in 2018 that a two-finger salute^[which?] used in the Chinese dance was not a part of the culture. Though it might have had its source in a Mongolian chopstick dance, she called it «heedless insensitivity to stereotyping». She also complained about the use in the Chinese dance of «bobbing, subservient ‘kowtow’ steps, Fu Manchu mustaches, and … yellowface» makeup, compared to blackface. One concern she had was that dancers believed they were learning about Asian culture, when they were really experiencing a cartoon version.^[83]

Fisher went on to say some ballet companies were recognizing that change had to happen. Georgina Pazcoguin of the New York City Ballet and 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 drop geisha wigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed.^[83]

In popular culture[edit]

Film[edit]

Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:

• The 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia features a segment using The Nutcracker Suite. This version was also included both as part of the 3-LP soundtrack album of Fantasia (since released as a 2-CD set), and as a single LP, with Dance of the Hours, another Fantasia segment, on the reverse side.^[84][85]
• The Spirit of Christmas, a 1950 marionette made-for-TV featurette in color narrated by Alexander Scourby, utilizes the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, and this sequence also includes music from The Nutcracker.
• A 1951 thirty-minute short, Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen, issued on DVD by Something Weird Video, features several dances from The Nutcracker.^[86]
• The Nutcracker (1973) features a nameless girl (slightly similar to Clara) who works as a maid. She befriends and falls in love with a nutcracker ornament, who was a young prince cursed by the three headed Mouse King.
• Sanrio released a stop-motion adaptation of The Nutcracker entitled Nutcracker Fantasy in 1979.
• In 1988, Care Bears Nutcracker Suite was produced by the Canadian animation studio Nelvana and featured the Care Bears characters.
• A 1990 animated film titled The Nutcracker Prince was released and distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures and uses cuts of the music throughout and its story is based heavily on that of the ballet.
• A 1999 animated film titled The Nuttiest Nutcracker featured the voices of Cheech Marin, Jim Belushi, and Phyllis Diller, and followed a group of anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables.
• In 2001, Barbie appeared in her first film, Barbie in the Nutcracker. It used excerpts by Tchaikovsky, which were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Though it heavily altered the story, it still made use of ballet sequences which had been rotoscoped using real ballet dancers.^[87]
• In 2007, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale also used The Nutcracker excerpts, which were performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
• Disney announced that a remake of The Nutcracker would be directed by Robert Zemeckis through the use of motion capture, a technique that was used in The Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. The film was cancelled following the box office disappointment of Mars Needs Moms.
• In 2010, The Nutcracker in 3D with Elle Fanning abandoned the ballet and most of the story, retaining much of Tchaikovsky’s music with lyrics by Tim Rice. The $90 million film became the year’s biggest box office bomb.
• In 2016, the Hallmark Channel presented A Nutcracker Christmas; a tele-film that contains a number of selected scenes of the 1892 two-act Nutcracker ballet.
• In 2017, the Athens State Orchestra in collaboration with Cinecreed productions (former name: 1895 cinematic creations) presented «A Different Nutcracker» animation film, directed by Yiorgos Molvalis. At the premiere (Chr. Lamprakis, Athens Concert Hall, December 26, 2017) as Silent animation, the film was recorded live by the Athens State Orchestra. In 2020 the official recording was integrated in to the film marking its completion and making it available for screenings without the need to have the orchestra present.
• In 2018, the Disney live-action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was released with Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston as directors and a script by Ashleigh Powell.^[88][89]

Television[edit]

• A 1954 Christmas episode of General Electric Theater featured Fred Waring and his choral group, the Pennsylvanians, singing excerpts from The Nutcracker with specially written lyrics. While the music was being sung, the audience saw ballet dancers performing.^[90] The episode was hosted by Ronald Reagan.
• The 1987 true crime miniseries Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder opens every episode with the first notes of the ballet amid scenes of Frances Schreuder’s daughter dancing to it in ballet dress.
• «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays in the gabian dubbing version of El Chapulín Colorado episode «El Mistério Del Hombre De Las Nieves» while Chapolin and his friends Carlos and Florinda use sleeping bags for themselves to sleep at home until the music is interrupted after a fake yeti invades the house to scare them.
• Garfield and Friends episode, «Caped Avenger», «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays briefly while a shadow kidnaps Pooky.
• The «Toon TV» episode of Tiny Toon Adventures features an arcade-themed song called «Video Game Blues», set to «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» and «The Russian Dance».
• Batman: The Animated Series episode, «Christmas with the Joker», The Joker plays, «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy», and later, «The Russian Dance» on a record player to distract Batman and Robin.
• A 1996 episode of The Magic School Bus («Holiday Special», season 3, episode 39), Wanda is planning to see a performance of The Nutcracker. Some of the music for this episode was based on the score of the ballet.^[91]
• The Mickey Mouse Works «MouseTales» segment, the House of Mouse episode, «Pete’s Christmas Caper», and the feature film, Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse, with Mickey Mouse playing the role of the Nutcraker, Minnie Mouse as Maria, Donald Duck as the King Mouse, Goofy as the Magical Snow Fairy, and Ludwig Von Drake as Godpapa Drosselmeyer.
• The Barney & Friends TV Christmas episode features its own version of the Nutcracker with Barney the Dinosaur as the narrator, dressed up in a tuxedo vest and matching cuffs.
• Princess Tutu, a 2002 anime series that uses elements from many ballets as both music and as part of the storyline, uses the music from The Nutcracker in many places throughout its run, including using an arranged version of the overture as the theme for the main character. Both the first and last episodes feature The Nutcracker as their ‘theme’, and one of the main characters is named Drosselmeyer.
• An arrangement of this the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy can be heard in Episode 8 of Girls und Panzer.
• Arrangements of the Waltz of the flowers can be heard in Episode 7 of Guilty Crown.
• The 2015 Canadian television film The Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale, based on an autobiographical short story by onetime Canadian ballet student Vickie Fagan, centres on a young ballet student preparing to dance the role of Clara in a production of The Nutcracker.

Video games[edit]

• In the NES version of Tetris, the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is available as background music (referred to in the settings as «Music 1»), and the same arrangement was later remixed for the Game Boy Advance version of Tetris Worlds.
• In the NES game Winter Games, «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as the music for the figure skating event.
• In the game BioShock, the main character Jack meets an insane musician named Sander Cohen who tasks Jack with killing and photographing four of Sander’s ex-disciples. When the third photograph is given to Sander, in a fit of pique he unleashes waves of splicer enemies to attack Jack while playing «Waltz of the Flowers» from speakers in the area.
• In the original Lemmings «Dance of the Reed Flutes» and «Miniature Overture» is used in several levels.
• In Weird Dreams, there is also a plus sized ballerina dancing to the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» in the Hall of Tubes.
• In the Baby Bowser levels of Yoshi’s Story, a variation of the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is used as the background music.
• In Mega Man Legends, the «Waltz of the Flowers» can be heard in the Balloon Fantasy minigame.
• In Crash Tag Team Racing, the «Trepak» are the background themes played during Tire & Ice track as a part with «Kalinka» and «Hungarian Dance No. 5».
• In the Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as optional background music for the figure skating event. In the Nintendo DS version, the «Marche» and «Trepak» are used.^[92]
• In Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance the «Waltz of Flowers», «The Arabian Dance», «The Russian Dance», «The Dance of the Reed Flutes» and «The Chinese Dance» are the background themes that play when Riku is in the world based on Disney’s Fantasia.
• In Hatoful Boyfriend, the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» is used as the character theme for Iwamine Shuu.
• In a TV advertisement for Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes 2, the plastic army men work together using a train playset to move a firecracker under the Christmas tree and place it between the Nutcracker doll’s legs, while «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy» plays.
• In Fantasia: Music Evolved, a medley of «The Nutcracker» is listed and consists of the «Marche», «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy», and «Trepak»; besides the original mix, there is also the «D00 BAH D00» mix and the «DC Breaks» mix.
• In Dynamite Headdy, the «March» is used in the Mad Dog boss battle.
• In Grand Theft Auto V one of the classical horns, that can be bought for cars, plays the «Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy».^[93]
• The «Waltz of the Flowers» appears during a baby’s death scene in What Remains of Edith Finch.
• In the game «Cell to Singularity,» «Waltz of the Flowers» is heard in the background when new creatures are created.
• In LittleBigPlanet 3, a remix of «Waltz of the Flowers» is used as background music in the level «Tutu Tango» and is an unlockable music track in Create Mode.
• The «Kids Mode» of Just Dance 2021 and Just Dance 2022 features the song «Dance of the Mirlitons» on the soundtrack.

Children’s recordings[edit]

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 titled The Nutcracker Suite for Children, narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcer Milton Cross, which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a 78-RPM album set in the 1940s.^[94] For the children’s label Peter Pan Records, actor Victor Jory narrated a condensed adaptation of the story with excerpts from the score. It was released on one side of a 45-RPM disc.^[95] A later version, titled The Nutcracker Suite, starred Denise Bryer and 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 story The 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 the Tale Spinners for Children series.^[96]

Spike Jones produced 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 ^[97]

Journalism[edit]

• In 2009, Pulitzer Prize–winning dance critic Sarah Kaufman wrote a series of articles for The Washington Post criticizing the primacy of The Nutcracker in the American repertory for stunting the creative evolution of ballet in the United States:^{[98][99][100]}

That warm and welcoming veneer of domestic bliss in The Nutcracker gives the appearance that all is just plummy in the ballet world. But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country… companies are so cautious in their programming that they have effectively reduced an art form to a rotation of over-roasted chestnuts that no one can justifiably croon about… The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become. There were moments throughout the 20th century when ballet was brave. When it threw bold punches at its own conventions. First among these was the Ballets Russes period, when ballet—ballet—lassoed the avant-garde art movement and, with works such as Michel Fokine’s fashionably sexy Scheherazade (1910) and Léonide Massine’s Cubist-inspired Parade (1917), made world capitals sit up and take notice. Afraid of scandal? Not these free-thinkers; Vaslav Nijinsky’s rough-hewn, aggressive Rite of Spring famously put Paris in an uproar in 1913… Where are this century’s provocations? Has ballet become so entwined with its «Nutcracker» image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?^[99]

• In 2010, Alastair Macaulay, dance critic for The New York Times (who had previously taken Kaufman to task for her criticism of The Nutcracker^[101]) began The Nutcracker Chronicles, a series of blog articles documenting his travels across the United States to see different productions of the ballet.^[102]

Act I of The Nutcracker ends with snow falling and snowflakes dancing. Yet The Nutcracker is now seasonal entertainment even in parts of America where snow seldom falls: Hawaii, the California coast, Florida. Over the last 70 years this ballet—conceived in the Old World—has become an American institution. Its amalgam of children, parents, toys, a Christmas tree, snow, sweets and Tchaikovsky’s astounding score is integral to the season of good will that runs from Thanksgiving to New Year… I am a European who lives in America, and I never saw any Nutcracker until I was 21. Since then I’ve seen it many times. The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art. So this year I’m running a Nutcracker marathon: taking in as many different American productions as I can reasonably manage in November and December, from coast to coast (more than 20, if all goes well). America is a country I’m still discovering; let The Nutcracker be part of my research.^[103]

• In 2014, Ellen O’Connell, who trained with the Royal Ballet in London, wrote, in Salon (website), on the darker side of The Nutcracker story. In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original story, the Nutcracker and Mouse King, Marie’s (Clara’s), journey becomes a fevered delirium that transports her to a land where she sees sparkling Christmas Forests and Marzipan Castles, but in a world populated with dolls.^[104] Hoffmann’s tales were so bizarre, Sigmund Freud wrote about them in The Uncanny.^[105][106]

E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 fairy tale, on which the ballet is based, is troubling: Marie, a young girl, falls in love with a nutcracker doll, whom she only sees come alive when she falls asleep. …Marie falls, ostensibly in a fevered dream, into a glass cabinet, cutting her arm badly. She hears stories of trickery, deceit, a rodent mother avenging her children’s death, and a character who must never fall asleep (but of course does, with disastrous consequences). While she heals from her wound, the mouse king brainwashes her in her sleep. Her family forbids her from speaking of her «dreams» anymore, but when she vows to love even an ugly nutcracker, he comes alive and she marries him.

Popular music[edit]

• The song «Dance Mystique» (track B1) on the studio album Bach to the Blues (1964) by the Ramsey Lewis Trio is a jazz adaptation of Coffee (Arabian Dance).
• The song «Fall Out» by English band Mansun from their 1998 album Six heavily relies on the celesta theme from the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
• The song «Dark Ballet» by American singer-songwriter Madonna samples the melody of Dance of the Reed Flutes (Danish Marzipan) which is often mistaken for Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The song also relied on the lesser-known harp cadenza from Waltz of the Flowers. The same Tchaikovsky sample was earlier used in internationally famous 1992 ads for Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut with ‘Madonna’ as the singing chocolate bar (in Russian version the subtitles «‘This Is Madonna'» (Russian: Это Мадонна, tr. Eto Madonna) were displayed on a screen.^[107]

See also[edit]

• Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Nutcracker (ballet): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• The Nutcracker (suite): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Tchaikovsky Research
• The Nutcracker ballet

Щелкунчик
Фрагмент спектакля «Щелкунчик» в постановке Императорского Мариинского театра, 1892: Марианна — Лидия Рубцова, Клара — Станислава Белинская, Фриц — Василий Стуколкин.
Композитор	П. И. Чайковский
Источник сюжета	сказка Э. Т. А. Гофмана «Щелкунчик и мышиный король» в переложении Александра Дюма
Хореограф	Лев Иванов по разработке Мариуса Петипа[1]
Последующие редакции	Лев Иванов, Александр Горский, Фёдор Лопухов, Василий Вайнонен, Юрий Григорович
Год создания	1892
Первая постановка	6 декабря 1892
Место первой постановки	Мариинский театр, Санкт-Петербург

«Щелку́нчик» — соч. 71, балет Петра Чайковского в двух актах на либретто Мариуса Петипа по мотивам сказки Э. Т. А. Гофмана «Щелкунчик и мышиный король».

Либретто к балету создано Мариусом Петипа по мотивам сказки Э. Т. А. Гофмана «Щелкунчик и мышиный король» (1816 год; в основу либретто легло переложение сказки, сделанное в 1844 году Александром Дюма-отцом^[2], однако Театральная энциклопедия ошибочно называет автором переложения Дюма-сына)^[3].

Премьера балета состоялась 6 (18) декабря 1892 года в Мариинском театре в Санкт-Петербурге в один вечер с оперой «Иоланта». Роли Клары и Фрица исполняли дети, учащиеся Петербургского Императорского театрального училища, которое оба закончили лишь через несколько лет в 1899 году^[4] (это видно и по приведённой в данной статье фотографии — см. выше) Клара — Станислава Белинская, Фриц — Василий Стуколкин. Другие исполнители: Щелкунчик — Сергей Легат, фея Драже — Антониетта Дель-Эра, принц Коклюш — Павел Гердт, Дроссельмейер — Тимофей Стуколкин, племянница Марианна — Лидия Рубцова; балетмейстер Иванов, дирижёр Дриго, художники Бочаров и К. Иванов, костюмы — Всеволожский и Пономарев.

Щелкунчик занимает особое место среди поздних произведении П. И. Чайковского; стоит обособленно от традиции балетного жанра, новаторски применены музыкальные образы. Он является для композитора точкой отсчета в поисках смысла жизни, именно в нем слышны раздумия на тему вечного.

В разных редакциях есть разночтения в имени главной героини: Клара и Мари. В оригинальном произведении Гофмана имя девочки Мари, а Клара — это её любимая кукла.

В России с началом Первой мировой войны (1914 год) и ростом патриотических настроений сюжет балета русифицировался, и главная героиня стала зваться Машей. При этом Фриц остался непереименованным, поскольку он — отрицательный персонаж. Примечательно, что эта традиция действует до сих пор.

Действующие лица

Чайковский — Вариация Маши

Помощь по воспроизведению

• Штальбаум.
• Его жена.

их дети:

• Клара (Мари, Маша), принцесса
• Фриц (Миша)

• Марианна, племянница
• Няня.
• Дроссельмейер.
• Щелкунчик, принц
• Фея Драже
• Принц Коклюш
• Кукла.
• Паяц (шут).
• Король мышей.
• Кордебалет: гости, родственники, слуги, маски, пажи, цветы, игрушки, солдатики и т. д.

Либретто

Балет в двух действиях с прологом

Пролог

В канун Рождества, в красивом доме доктора Штальбаума начинают собираться гости. За взрослыми на цыпочках следуют девочки с куклами и маршируют мальчики с саблями.

Действие I

Дети доктора Штальбаума Мари и Фриц, как и другие дети, с нетерпением ждут подарков. Последний из гостей — Дроссельмейер. Он входит в цилиндре, с тростью и в маске. Его способность оживлять игрушки не только забавляет детей, но и пугает их. Дроссельмейер снимает маску. Мари и Фриц узнают своего любимого крестного.

Мари хочет поиграть с куклами, но с огорчением узнает, что они все убраны. Чтобы успокоить девочку, крестный дарит ей Щелкунчика. Странное выражение лица куклы забавляет её. Шалун и озорник Фриц нечаянно ломает куклу. Мари расстроена. Она укладывает полюбившуюся ей куклу спать. Фриц вместе с друзьями надевают маски мышей и начинают дразнить Мари.

Праздник заканчивается, и гости танцуют традиционный танец «Гросс-Фатер», после чего все расходятся по домам. Наступает ночь. Комната, в которой находится ёлка, наполняется лунным светом. Мари возвращается, она обнимает Щелкунчика. И тут появляется Дроссельмейер. Он уже не крестный, а добрый волшебник. Он взмахивает рукой и в комнате начинает все меняться: стены раздвигаются, ёлка начинает расти, ёлочные игрушки оживают и становятся солдатиками. Внезапно появляются мыши под предводительством Мышиного короля. Отважный Щелкунчик ведёт солдатиков в бой.

Щелкунчик и Мышиный король встречаются в смертельной схватке. Мари видит, что армия мышей превосходит армию солдатиков.

В отчаянии она снимает с себя туфельку и со всей силой бросает её в Мышиного короля. Он напуган и убегает вместе со своей армией. Армия солдатиков победила. Они триумфально несут Мари на плечах к Щелкунчику. Внезапно лицо Щелкунчика начинает меняться. Он перестаёт быть уродливой куклой и превращается в прекрасного Принца. Мари и оставшиеся в живых куклы оказываются под звёздным небом и фантастически красивой ёлкой, вокруг кружатся снежинки.

Действие II

Мари и Принц любуются красотой звёздного неба. Внезапно их атакуют мыши. И вновь Принц наносит им поражение. Все танцуют и веселятся, празднуют победу над мышиным войском.

Испанская, Индийская и Китайская куклы благодарят Мари за то, что она спасла им жизнь. Вокруг танцуют прекрасные феи и пажи.

Появляется Дроссельмейер, он опять меняет все вокруг. Все готовятся к королевской свадьбе Мари и Принца. Мари просыпается. Щелкунчик всё ещё у неё в руках. Она сидит в Знакомой комнате. Увы, это был всего лишь сказочный сон…

Существует также так называемый Фрейдитский вариант балета, разработанный Р. Нуреевым. Согласно ему, после танца с принцем Мари просыпается и щелкунчиком оказывается помолодевший Дроссельмейер.

Состав

Состав:^[5]

1. Увертюра
2. Действие первое.
   1. Картина 1.
      1. Украшение Рождественской Елки
      2. Марш
      3. Детский галоп и выход гостей
      4. Сцена с танцами (выход Дроссельмаера)
         1. Танец заводных кукол (мазурка)
         2. Демонический танец
      5. Сцена и танец родителей (Гроссфатер)
      6. Сцена (Уход гостей. Ночь)
         1. Первый вальс Маши с Щелкунчиком
         2. Полька
         3. Колыбельная
      7. Сцена (Сражение)
   2. Картина 2.
      1. Сцена (Еловый лес зимой) (рост ёлки)
      2. Вальс снежных хлопьев (танец снежинок)
3. Действие второе.
   1. Сцена (Дворец сластей Конфитюренбург)
   2. Сцена (Прибытие Клары и Щелкунчика)
   3. Дивертисмент
      1. Шоколад (Испанский танец)
      2. Кофе (Арабский танец)
      3. Чай (Китайский танец)
      4. Трепак (Русский танец) (карамельная трость)
      5. Танец пастушков (Датский марципан)
      6. Мамаша Гигонь (Жигонь) и паяцы
   4. Вальс цветов
   5. Па-де-де (Фея Драже и принц Оршад)
      1. Вариация I (Тарантелла)
      2. Вариация II (Танец Феи Драже)
      3. Кода
      4. Финальный вальс
      5. Апофеоз

Мистика произведения

Детская сказка, волшебство Нового года, так мы привыкли видеть и воспринимать «Щелкунчика» как балет-праздник. Но за яркостью музыкальных форм, пышностью сценического оформления и красотой исполнительского искусства таится глубокий философский замысел. Несколько основных тем творчества Гофмана составляют основу идейного содержания и балета по его произведению. Это иллюзорность грани между явью и сном, живыми существами и неживыми предметами и игрушками, оппозиция мира взрослых и мира детей, борьба благородства и мелочного зла, сокрытая за маской чудачества мудрость (в образе Дроссельмейера), всепобеждающая любовь и главнейшая тема — поиски человеком своей истинной природы.

Балет многослоен: сюжетный, музыкальный, философский, архетипический, религиозно-мифический и поэтические аспекты дополняют друг друга. Нельзя забывать, что это произведение является детищем нескольких самостоятельных творцов, живших в разные историко-культурные эпохи. Так или иначе в балете оказались отражены они все. Здесь есть и изначальный романтический «заряд» Гофмана, и лирика Чайковского, и старинные пасторальные пастушки, и модная в 19 веке «восточность» в виде арабского и китайского танцев, и гениальный русский танец, привнесённый Петром Ильичом в сказку немецкого писателя. Как в самом танце, так и в музыке чувствуется наслоение традиций разных школ.

Действие происходит зимой, и волшебство этого времени года создаёт особую атмосферу сказки. В мифах зима считается аналогом смерти, застывшей жизни, но так же и подготовкой к чему-то новому. Зима — это остановка, состояние замирания, отсутствия времени, позволяющее набраться сил, чтобы исправить все ошибки прошлого, задуматься над главными вопросами и познать самого себя. Пробуждение рождает в нас эйфорию воздушности, лёгкости жизни, аромат душистого хмеля придаёт бодрость, прежние дороги заметаются и забываются. Все прежние связи рвутся, чтобы могли образоваться новые. Конфитюренбург символизирует собой мир прекрасного в понимании детей, аналогом которого является мир Золотого горшка в одноимённом сочинении Гофмана. Герои познают своё истинное «я» — это личность принца и принцессы, а также истинное существование. Это отражается и в сцене роста Ёлки, которая стремиться подняться все выше, выразить себя как можно полнее в этом мире. Будь то мифический Элизий или Христианский Эдем, финал пройден, нет окна, в которое можно увидеть себя в прошлом, конец поискам, нет уроков познания, только праведная жизнь, только воздаяния праведным.

Значимые постановки

Мариинский театр

• 6 (18) декабря 1892 года — премьера: балетмейстер Лев Иванов, дирижёр Рикардо Дриго, художники Михаил Бочаров и К. Иванов, костюмы — Иван Всеволожский и Евгений Пономарёв; Клара — Станислава Белинская, Фриц — Василий Стуколкин; остальные партии: Щелкунчик — Сергей Легат, фея Драже — Антониетта Дель-Эра, принц Коклюш — Павел Гердт, Дроссельмейер — Тимофей Стуколкин, Шут — Александр Ширяев, Марианна — Лидия Рубцова.
• 1923 — возобновление постановки Льва Иванова в тех же декорациях; балетмейстеры Фёдор Лопухов и Александр Ширяев, дирижёр Александр Гаук; фея Драже — Елизавета Гердт, принц Коклюш — Михаил Дудко, Дроссельмейер — Николай Солянников.
• 1929 — Новая редакция; балетмейстер Фёдор Лопухов, дирижёр Александр Гаук, худ. Владимир Дмитриев; Маша — Ольга Мунгалова, Щелкунчик — Пётр Гусев, Дроссельмейер — Леонид Леонтьев.
• 1934 — балетмейстер Василий Вайнонен, дирижёр Евгений Мравинский, худ. Иван Селезнёв; Маша — Галина Уланова, Щелкунчик-принц — Константин Сергеев.^[6]
• 2001 — балетмейстер — Кирилл Симонов, музыкальный руководитель — Валерий Гергиев, декорации, костюмы, либретто, постановка — Михаил Шемякин. Маша — Наталья Сологуб, Щелкунчик-принц — Александр Сергеев^[7], Андриан Фадеев, Дроссельмейер — Антон Адасинский.

Большой театр

• 1919 — балетмейстер Александр Горский, дирижёр Н. А. Федоров, художник Константин Коровин; Клара — Валентина Кудрявцева, Фриц — Шокоров 2-й, Щелкунчик-принц — Ефим Ефимов, Дроссельмейер — Алексей Булгаков. В этой постановке сцена представляла собой сервированный стол с огромным кофейным сервизом, из которого выходили танцоры.
• 1932 — спектакль балетного техникума при ГАБТе; балетмейстер Л. И. Иванов, возобновление Александра Чекрыгина и Александра Монахова, дирижёр Юрий Файер, художник Панфилов; Клара — Евгения Фарманянц, Щелкунчик — Юрий Папко, Фриц — Ю. Гербер, Дроссельмейер — Александр Чекрыгин, фея Драже — Ольга Лепешинская.
• 1939 — балетмейстер В. И. Вайнонен, дирижёр Юрий Файер, худ. Владимир Дмитриев; Маша — Марина Семенова, Щелкунчик — Алексей Ермолаев, Дроссельмейер — Владимир Рябцев.
• 12 марта 1966 — новая постановка; балетмейстер Юрий Григорович, дирижёр Геннадий Рождественский, худ. Симон Вирсаладзе; Маша — Екатерина Максимова, Щелкунчик-принц — Владимир Васильев, Дроссельмейер — Владимир Левашев, Король мышей — Герман Ситников, Щелкунчик — кукла — Елена Ватуля, Французская кукла — Татьяна Попко.

Примечания

Ссылки

	Щелкунчик на Викискладе?

• балет «Щелкунчик» Театра Санкт-Петербургской консерватории на сцене Михайловского театра на телеканале «Искусство ТВ»
• Щелкунчик — либретто и фотографии балета в постановке Театра классического балета п/р Н. Касаткиной и В. Василёва
• ЩЕЛКУНЧИК. Либретто

Балеты Петра Ильича Чайковского
Лебединое озеро, Op. 20 · Спящая красавица, Op. 66 · Щелкунчик, Op. 71 Список произведений Петра Чайковского

Произведения П. И. Чайковского
Оперы	Воевода | Ундина | Опричник | Евгений Онегин | Орлеанская дева | Мазепа | Черевички | Чародейка | Пиковая дама | Иоланта
Балеты	Лебединое озеро | Спящая красавица | Щелкунчик
Симфонии	№ 1 g-moll «Зимние грёзы» | № 2 c-moll | № 3 D-dur | № 4 f-moll |«Манфред» h-moll | № 5 e-moll) | № 6 h-moll «Патетическая» | № 7 Es-dur «Жизнь», неоконченная | Серенада для струнного оркестра
Концерты и концертные пьесы	для фортепиано с оркестром Концерт № 1 b-moll | Концерт № 2 G-dur | Концерт № 3 Es-dur для скрипки с оркестром Концерт D-dur | Меланхолическая серенада b-moll | Вальс-скерцо C-dur для виолончели с оркестром Вариации на тему рококо A-dur | Pezzo capricciozo h-moll
Струнные квартеты	№ 1 D-dur | № 2 F-dur | № 3 es-moll
Для фортепиано	2 сонаты (cis-moll | Большая соната G-dur | Времена года | Детский альбом)

Балеты Фёдора Лопухова
Жар-птица • Величие мироздания • Ночь на Лысой горе • Красный вихрь • Байка про лису • Красный мак • Щелкунчик • Болт • Светлый ручей • Тарас Бульба • Тщетная предосторожность

Балеты Василия Вайнонена
Золотой век • Пламя Парижа • Щелкунчик • Партизанские дни • Раймонда • Милица • Берег счастья • Мирандолина • Гаянэ

Балеты Юрия Григоровича
Каменный цветок • Легенда о любви • Щелкунчик • Спартак • Иван Грозный • Ангара • Ромео и Джульетта • Золотой век

П.И. Чайковский балет «Щелкунчик»

Самое волшебное и новогоднее произведение П.И. Чайковского, известное по всему миру – балет «Щелкунчик». Зачастую в классических операх или балетах есть один или несколько известных номеров, которые становятся знаковыми для произведения и горячо любимыми публикой. О «Щелкунчике» этого не скажешь, потому что весь балет состоит из таких «хитов»! Пожалуй, это самое узнаваемое произведение во всем мире. Чего только стоит завораживающий Танец феи Драже, нежнейший Вальс Цветов, череда танцев: Шоколад, Кофе, Чай и многие другие. Да и кто из детей, в конце концов, не мечтал оказаться на месте Мари и Щелкунчика в этом сказочном месте из шоколада, карамели, зефира и прочих вкусностей?!

Краткое содержание балета Чайковского «Щелкунчик» и множество интересных фактов об этом произведении читайте на нашей странице.

Действующие лица	Описание
Штальбаум	советник медицины, именно в его доме разворачиваются все события
Мари	дочка Штальбаума, получившая в подарок Щелкунчика
Фриц	брат Мари, сломавший Щелкунчика на празднике
Дроссельмейер	крестный Мари, подаривший ей Щелкунчика и рассказавший о чудесном городе
Щелкунчик	заколдованный принц
Фея Драже	правительница в волшебном городе Конфитюренбурге
Принц Коклюш	принц из сказочного города, встречающий девочку и Щелкунчика
Король мышей	злой повелитель враждебной армии мышей, напавший на Щелкунчика

Краткое содержание «Щелкунчика»

Основные события в балете разворачиваются накануне большого и светлого праздника — Рождества.

В доме Штальбаума собрались гости и крестный Мари, который пришел с кучей подарков для детей. Среди них заметно выделяется кукла, предназначенная для колки орехов – Щелкунчик. Довольно неуклюжая игрушка с широкой улыбкой сразу понравилась девочке Мари. Уже все дети ушли спать, а она все не могла расстаться с Щелкунчиком.

Девочка так заигралась, что не заметила, как вокруг все стало меняться. Елка стала огромных размеров и послышался странный шорох. В комнате появилась армия мышей, а сам Щелкунчик внезапно ожил, превратившись в прекрасного юношу. Он тут же собрал себе армию из солдатиков и отправился на врага, но их силы были неравны. Мари, увидев это, решила помочь Щелкунчику и кинула своим башмачком в Короля мышей. Враги испугались внезапной атаки и разбежались.

Когда Мари очнулась, перед ней оказался ее крестный – Дроссельмейер, представший в образе волшебника. Он рассказал об удивительном сказочном мире, в который достаточно непросто попасть, преодолевая снежную бурю. Но Мари вместе с Щелкунчиком отправляются в эту страну. Они оказываются в чудесном городе Конфитюренбурге, где кругом много сладостей и гостей, встречающих их. Фея Драже устраивает пышный бал в их честь и Мари становится настоящей принцессой, после того, как Щелкунчик рассказал, как она спасла его. Когда торжество заканчивается, волшебник помогает Мари вернуться домой из своего чудесного путешествия.

Продолжительность спектакля
I Акт	II Акт
50 мин.	50 мин.

Фото:

 

 

Интересные факты о Щелкунчике

• Сохранились сведения, что на первом представлении балета в Мариинском театре (декабрь 1892 года) публика была необычайно удивлена именно силой звучания оркестра. В особенности привлек их внимание музыкальный инструмент челеста.
• Начиная с постановок «Щелкунчика», появилась традиция отдавать второстепенные роли ученикам хореографических училищ.
• Танец «Кофе» основан на народной грузинской колыбельной.
• Согласно содержанию немецкой легенды, щелкунчики приносят удачу и оберегают дом. Поэтому эти деревянные механические куклы были популярны как рождественские подарки для детей.

• Елка, которую устанавливают обычно на сцене в первом акте, весит около тонны.
• Во время нежного танца снежинок на сцену падает конфетти, общая масса которого около 20 кг.
• За весь спектакль на сцене демонстрируется около 150 различных костюмов.

• Для полноценной работы всего оборудования, нанесения грима и смены костюмов за кулисами во время выступления должно находится около 60 человек.
• Для освещения балета применяется обычно до 700 осветительных приборов.
• На одну пачку Феи Драже уходит 7 слоев тюля.

• Существует некая путаница в именах девочки (Мари, Маша или Клара). На самом деле, как указано в первоисточнике, Клара – это всего лишь кукла девочки, которую зовут Марихен. На французский манер ее имя звучит как Мари, именно такая версия досталась директору Императорских театров Всеволжскому. В советских постановках, начиная с 1930 года, балет русифицировался и девочка Мари получила имя Мария, а ее брат стал Мишей. Также праздник Рождество заменили на Новый Год.
• Перед тем как приступить к написанию балета, Чайковский сначала полностью написал сюжет со слов Всеволжского и уже после принялся сочинять музыку.
• Волшебный город Конфитюренберг из второго акта так же придумал Всеволжский.
• Самый большой шелкунчик был сделан в Германии и имел высоту более 10 метров.
• Франк Рассел Гэли исполнил партию Щелкунчика в рекордном возрасте, на тот момент ему было 74 года и 101 день.
• Первоисточником знаменитого спектакля стала немецкая сказка Э.Т.А. Гофмана «Щелкунчик и мышиный король», вышедшая в свет в 1816 году.

Популярные номера «Щелкунчика»

Вальс цветов (слушать)

Марш из I действия (слушать)

Танец Феи Драже (слушать)

Вальс снежных хлопьев (слушать)

Па-де-де Феи Драже и Принца Оршада-Коклюша — адажио (слушать)

Музыка

Петр Ильич воплощает уже известную ему тематику в балете – преодоление враждебных сил благодаря силе любви. Музыка насыщается новыми выразительными образами. Интересно наблюдать за тем, как совмещается здесь выразительность с изобразительностью, яркая театральность и глубочайший психологизм.

Музыкальная ткань балета очень яркая и насыщена сильными, запоминающимися номерами. Так, перед сценой роста елки из первого акта звучит необычайная по выразительности музыка. Начинается она призрачно, передавая мышиную суету. Постепенно она приобретает более широкий размах, трансформируясь в разворачивающуюся мелодию.

Чайковский постарался, чтобы музыка очень тонко передавала всё содержание сказки, происходящее на сцене: барабанный бой, фанфары или писк мышей. Особенно любим у публики Дивертисмент II акта, который заключает в себе череду танцев на балу в сказочной стране. Это и яркий испанский танец – Шоколад, волнующий восточный – Кофе, характерный китайский – Чай, а также необычайно яркий и живой – Трепак. Далее идет изящный танец пастушков, Матушка Жигонь и жемчужина Дивертисмента – Вальс цветов с его завораживающей мелодией. Танец Феи Драже привлекает своей изысканностью, а настоящей лирической и драматической кульминацией смело можно назвать адажио.

История создания «Щелкунчика»

В 1890 году Петру Ильичу Чайковскому предложили сочинить оперу, состоящую из одного акта и балет. По замыслу эти произведения должны были исполняться в один вечер. Работать над балетом он начал вместе с Мариусом Петипа. Примечательно, что при написании партитуры Чайковский постоянно советовался с ним, даже по поводу музыки. Работа протекала достаточно быстро, однако, весной 1891 года, Петр Ильич вынужден был сделать паузу. Причина была уважительной – он отправился в США, где проходило долгожданное открытие знаменитого Карнеги-холла. Сохранились сведения, что Чайковский умудрялся сочинять даже в дороге на пароходе, так как боялся не успеть к сроку.

Несмотря на все свои старания, композитор был вынужден послать Всеволжскому письмо из Парижа и попросить немного перенести премьеру. Как только Чайковский вернулся, работа пошла гораздо продуктивнее. Так, к февралю 1892 года он полностью закончил свой спектакль. Премьера сюиты из «Щелкунчика» состоялась в Русском музыкальном обществе под управлением автора. Публика восторженно встретила новое произведение композитора. В этом время Петипа тяжело заболевает и роль балетмейстера теперь уже исполняет Л. Иванов, который  как раз заканчивал свою карьеру танцовщика и ранее попробовал себя в роли хореографа. Так как Петипа не мог уже работать над либретто, его созданием продолжил заниматься брат композитора Модест Чайковский. Работа в театре над постановкой началась осенью 1892 года, премьера же была назначена на декабрь этого же года.

Литературная основа балета «Щелкунчик»

Первоисточником знаменитого спектакля стала немецкая сказка Э.Т.А. Гофмана «Щелкунчик и мышиный король», вышедшая в свет в 1861 году. По сюжету Марихен Штальбаум получает от своего крестного в подарок на Рождество небольшую куклу, предназначенную для колки орешков. Этой же ночью Щелкунчик чудесным образом оживает и вступает в сильнейшую и неравную борьбу с отрядом коварных мышей. Утром крестный Дроссельмейер поведал девочке одну интересную историю про своего племянника, заколдованного злобным королем мышей. И ночью Марихен, вместе со своей куклой Кларой и Щелкунчиком снова были атакованы врагами. Сумев одолеть коварное войско, они все вместе направились в сказочное царство, где девочку избрали принцессой.

Эта сказка была переведена литератором Эмилем Лабедолльером на французский язык в 1838 году. Именно этот перевод и достался знаменитому писателю Александру Дюма. Любопытно, что он решил создать уже свой вариант произведения. Эта немного измененная версия сказки с некоторыми отступлениями и попалась И.А. Всеволжскому, решившему создать балет.

Постановки «Щелкунчика»

Впервые постановка «Щелкунчик» вместе с оперой «Иоланта» состоялась в декабре 1892 года в Мариинском театре. Разработкой костюмов занимался сам Всеволжский, за дирижерским пультом стоял Р. Дриго. Успех был широчайшим, хотя и сохранились сведения о том, что опера публике понравилась поначалу больше. Несмотря на то, что единого действа не получилось, как планировал директор театров, по отдельности это были замечательные спектакли и в одной программе они больше не использовались. Работу Л. Иванова признали великолепной, особенно критики отметили созданный им танец воздушных снежинок. После своей премьеры балет оставался в репертуаре театра еще на протяжении 30 лет. В 1923 году балетмейстер Ф. Лопухов вновь обратился к спектаклю Чайковского, и в 1929 вышла обновленная версия «Щелкунчика». После этого балет еще неоднократно был поставлен на разных мировых сценах. Среди наиболее ярких постановок можно отметить версию балетмейстера Джорджа Баланчина, осуществленную в 1954 году в Нью-Йорке. Причем эта постановка вот уже более 50 лет ежегодно собирает все больше восторженных зрителей. Наряду с театральными постановками, балет также неоднократно был экранизирован.

На музыку «Щелкунчика» обратили внимание и многие мультипликаторы. В 1940 году на студии Уолта Диснея вышел мультфильм «Фантазия», в котором представлены некоторые фрагменты из балета. В советское время Борис Степанцев создал свой знаменитый мультфильм по сказке Гофмана, также с музыкой Чайковского. Подробнее познакомиться с этими версиями, можно в специальном разделе «Музыка из мультфильмов».

К необычным постановкам можно отнести версию Мэтью Боурна – британского хореографа. Она не имеет ничего общего с классической версией балета, тем не менее, хорошо отражает музыку. В частности, он дал другую интерпретацию Па-де-де из второго акта. События перенесены в приют для беспризорных детей, где за ними присматривает доктор Дросс. Сон главной героини оказывается совсем не таким, как в первоначальной версии. В нем все неустойчиво и любые объекты внезапно превращаются в различные вещи, иногда даже зловещие. А сами герои разлучаются из-за соперницы Мари, причем сам Щелкунчик и вовсе теряет память.

Вполне заслуженно спектакль является настоящей жемчужиной мирового балета. Со времен первой премьеры он с успехом ставится на всех известных мировых сценах. Музыку из «Щелкунчика» можно услышать в кино, в разнообразных мультфильмах и даже в компьютерных играх. Современные хореографы с удовольствием используют этот балет, привнося в него новшества, изменяя сюжет, место действия, вводя современные танцы. Лишь одно остается нетронутым – это удивительно прекрасная, завораживающая слушателей буквально с первых волшебных звуков музыка Чайковского.

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Пётр Ильич Чайковский «Щелкунчик»

Декабрь — время «Щелкунчика». Каждый год тысячи людей стремятся попасть на знаменитый балет, чтобы погрузиться в атмосферу праздника. Музыка Чайковского, мастерство артистов на сцене стали одной из самых красивых рождественских и новогодних традиций.

Кто придумал историю о Щелкунчике, как рождался балет, где посмотреть «Щелкунчика» на сцене и не только — рассказываем в нашем материале.

Как создавался великий балет

История балета началась со сказки.

В 1816 году немецкий писатель Эрнст Теодор Амадей Гофман написал сказочную повесть «Щелкунчик и Мышиный король». Произведение стало письменным изложением одной из сказок, которую Гофман сочинил в формате импровизации, общаясь с детьми своего близкого друга. Малыши Мари и Фриц так любили сказки старшего товарища, что в итоговой рукописи главные герои сказки получили их имена. Впрочем, есть вероятность, что в «Щелкунчике» писатель собрал сразу несколько на ходу придуманных сюжетов.

Сюжет сказки «Щелкунчик и Мышиный король»

В канун Рождества дети Мари и Фриц получают много подарков. Среди них — игрушка в виде маленького некрасивого человечка по имени Щелкунчик, умеющего разгрызать твёрдые орешки.

Вечером Мари подходит к шкафу с подарками и случайно видит настоящую битву: сражаются Мышиный король и его свита, выбравшиеся из-под пола, и армия игрушек, которую возглавляет Щелкунчик. Мари пытается помочь Щелкунчику, но чувствует сильную боль в руке и падает на пол. Утром девочка просыпается и рассказывает о ночной битве, но мать и доктор не верят Мари.

Крёстный Дроссельмейер приносит девочке отремонтированного Щелкунчика и рассказывает историю о нём: когда-то Щелкунчик был племянником Дроссельмейера, красивым и добрым юношей, но после проклятия королевы Мышильды превратился в маленького уродливого человечка. Чтобы вернуться в прежний облик, Щелкунчику нужно победить Мышиного короля и добиться любви Прекрасной Дамы. Ею становится Мари. Щелкунчик преподносит девочке трофеи поверженного Мышиного короля. Мари и Щелкунчик отправляются в волшебную страну, и Прекрасная Дама влюбляется в своего героя.

Родители Мари не верят воспоминаниям девочки и советуют поскорее забыть о странном сне, но девочка не может выбросить из головы воспоминания о Щелкунчике.

В финале сказки в доме появляется гость. Это племянник Дроссельмейера — красивый молодой человек. Он признаётся Мари, что перестал быть маленьким уродцем. Мари становится невестой бывшего Щелкунчика, на их свадьбе танцуют 2000 нарядных кукол.

Повесть «Щелкунчик и Мышиный король» была впервые опубликована в 1816 году в сборнике «Детские сказки» в Берлине. А спустя почти 30 лет, в 1844 году, появилось переложение сказки Гофмана — «История Щелкунчика».

П.-К. Гайсслер, иллюстрация к сказке о Щелкунчике, 1840 г.

В «Истории Щелкунчика» Александр Дюма-отец сохранил сюжетную линию, но в остальном французский вариант являл собой вольный перевод сказки с совершенно другой атмосферой и настроением. У Дюма-старшего акцент сместился на любовную линию: здесь искреннее светлое чувство оказывается всепобеждающим в борьбе со злым проклятием, и именно любовь помогает Щелкунчику из деревянного игрушечного уродца превратиться в настоящего человека.

«История Щелкунчика» послужила основой для создания великого балета Петра Ильича Чайковского.

Чайковский и «Щелкунчик»

Заказ на двухактный балет Чайковский получил в 1890 году от дирекции Императорских театров. Примерный сценарий постановки набросал балетмейстер Мариус Петипа — и в процессе работы этот сценарий неоднократно менялся. Премьера балета была запланирована на декабрь 1891 года, его хотели представить в один вечер с оперой, заказ на которую также был отдан Чайковскому.

Забегая вперёд, отметим: премьера балета состоялась 18 декабря 1892 года, на год позже запланированной даты. Балет «Щелкунчик» был представлен в один вечер с оперой П. И. Чайковского «Иоланта».

Изначально в либретто Мариуса Петипа был вложен несколько другой смысл, отличный от хорошо знакомого нам «Щелкунчика». Балетмейстер вдохновлялся Великой французской революцией, столетие которой отметили в 1889 году. Но в театр царской России конца XIX века революционная тематика не вписывалась, так что большинство идей Петипа так и остались идеями. Впрочем, мотив французской революционной песенки «Добрый путь, милый дю Молле!» Чайковский сохранил в итоговой партитуре.

Пётр Ильич Чайковский

Работа над «Щелкунчиком» давалась композитору нелегко. Настолько, что даже пришлось перенести премьеру на год. Чайковский, по его же собственному выражению, всё никак не мог «отделаться от балета». Композитор мучительно искал решение, пытаясь соединить сложную симфоническую музыку и довольно банальный сюжет, лишённый серьёзной драматургии.

С точки зрения музыки, результатом работы Петра Ильича Чайковского стало настоящее разнообразие мотивов и отсылок: помимо отголосков французских мелодий в балете исполняется арабский танец, основанный на грузинских колыбельных, звучит немецкий Grossvater Tanz — традиционная свадебная музыка (по одной версии, народная, по другой — написанная Карлом Готлибом Герингом).

В партитуре «Щелкунчика» композитор прибегает и к совершенно новым для русской музыки тех лет инструментам. Так «Танец феи Драже» Мариус Петипа описал как «звук падающих капель». Для музыкального сопровождения этого танца Чайковский выбрал французскую челесту. Ее сказочное звучание Пётр Ильич услышал в Париже во время премьеры «Бури» Эрнеста Шоссона. Клавишный металлофон издавал звуки совершенно божественные, чудные, лёгкие — и смог идеально, с точки зрения Чайковского, изобразить «звук падающих капель».

Нотный автограф П. И. Чайковского: набросок партитуры балета «Щелкунчик»
Фото из фондов Президентской библиотеки

Партитуру двухактного балета «Щелкунчик» Чайковский закончил в 1892 году. Постановка задумывалась в трёх картинах:

• первая — рождественский праздничный вечер в доме родителей Мари;
• вторая — сон Мари, в котором Щелкунчик сражается с крысиным войском и превращается в прекрасного принца;
• третья — волшебный город, в который попадают Мари и Щелкунчик.

Одна из главных загадок балета: как мыши превратились в крыс. В сказке Гофмана и последующем переложении Дюма-отца фигурирует именно мышиная свита. Но в своих черновых набросках Мариус Петипа пишет: «Появляются крысы с мышиным царём» — без других пояснений. Так в либретто появились крысы.

Премьера балета

Премьера «Щелкунчика» состоялась 18 декабря 1892 года на сцене Мариинского театра. Она вышла громкой.

Таковы были первые отзывы критиков о прошедшей премьере. Впрочем, и сам Чайковский признавался, что балет ему не нравится, постановка вышла аляповатой. Композитор даже вспоминал, что на премьере «ему было сложно смотреть на сцену».

Сцена из балета «Щелкунчик», Мариинский театр, 1892 г.

Были и положительные рецензии. И не от кого-нибудь, а от самого Александра Бенуа, одного из известнейших критиков конца XIX века. Он побывал на генеральной репетиции спектакля и отметил:

«Государь был в восхищении, призывал в ложу и наговорил массу сочувственных слов. Постановка… великолепна и в балете даже слишком великолепна — глаза устают от этой роскоши».

Даже получив тонны разгромной критики и, по сути, провалившись, «Щелкунчик», тем не менее, закрепился в репертуаре Мариинского театра больше чем на 30 лет.

«Щелкунчик» в России и в мире: на сцене и в кино

Среди известных вариаций балета П. И. Чайковского можно отметить:

• 1919 год — Большой театр, Москва, постановка Александра Горского

• 1923 год — Мариинский театр, Петербург, поставнока Фёдора Лопухова

• 1934 год — Мариинский театр, Петербург, постановка Василия Вайнонена, главные партии на премьере исполнили Галина Уланова и Константин Сергеев

• 1934 год — в Лондоне балет представил Николай Сергеев, эмигрировавший в Европу после Октябрьской революции

• 1954 год — воспитанник Мариинки Джордж Баланчин представил «Щелкунчика» в Нью-Йорке, балет показывают каждую зиму до сих пор

• 1966 год — в московском Большом театре состоялась премьера постановки Юрия Григоровича, которую многие специалисты называют практически идеальным решением партитуры Чайковского

• 1967 год — Рудольф Нуреев поставил балет Чайковского в Англии: сначала премьеру представили в Королевской шведской опере в Стокгольме, позже постановка нашла свой дом в Ковент-Гардене (Лондон), ещё через несколько лет Нуреев представил «Щелкунчика» в «Ла Скала» (Италия) и в Парижской опере

• 1976 год — премьера «Щелкунчика» Михаила Барышникова в Американском театре балета (Нью-Йорк), сам спектакль уже не идёт на сцене, но можно найти его видеоверсию

В 2001 году в Мариинском театре представили одну из самых необычных вариаций «Щелкунчика». Визуальный мир для балета создал художник Михаил Шемякин. Он разработал костюмы и декорации, тщательно продумал образы персонажей и даже диктовал хореографу характер пластики каждого героя. Эта красочная фантасмагория, насыщенная драматизмом музыки, причудливыми фантазиями автора, погружает зрителя в совсем другую атмосферу. На смену тихому семейному вечеру в канун Рождества приходит буйство эмоций и гротескных образов.

Сцена из балета «Щелкунчик», Мариинский театр. Фото: Мариинский театр

Знаменитую рождественскую сказку Гофмана не обошли вниманием и кинорежиссёры. Существует несколько версий «Щелкунчика» в кино. Среди самых известных:

• «Щелкунчик и Крысиный Король», 2010 год, режиссёр Андрей Кончаловский;

• «Щелкунчик», 1993 год, режиссёр Эмиль Ардолино — экранизации постановки балета Джорджа Баланчина (1954 год, Нью-Йорк);

• «Щелкунчик и мышиный король», 2004 год, режиссёр Наталья Мальгина — мультфильм, главные роли в котором озвучил звёздный состав артистов: Георгий Тараторкин, Евгений Миронов, Марина Александрова, Ефим Шифрин, Юрий Гальцев и другие;

• «Щелкунчик и четыре королевства», 2018 год, режиссёры Лассе Халльстрём, Джо Джонстон — голливудская версия в жанре фэнтези.

«Щелкунчик» в Петербурге

Каким бы сложным ни был уходящий 2022 год, театры продолжают верстать афиши и ждут любимых зрителей в своих залах. В конце года в этих залах традиционно прозвучит великая музыка Чайковского. У зрителей есть множество вариантов, где посмотреть «Щелкунчика» в Петербурге и подарить себе настоящий праздник в преддверии Нового года и Рождества.

• Классическая постановка Василия Вайнонена в Мариинском театре

• Балет Михаила Шемякина в Мариинском театре

• Спектакль Театра балета имени Леонида Якобсона

• Балет Начо Дуато в Михайловском театре

• Спектакль Академии русского балета им. А. Я. Вагановой в БКЗ «Октябрьский»

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