Pjotr Tjajkovskij

The Nutcracker, Op. 71

Tchaikovsky’s second ballet The Sleeping Beauty was first performed at the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in January 1890, but although the composer deemed it one of his best creations the first audiences and critics thought otherwise, treating it as coolly as they had his earlier ballet Swan Lake in 1877. Despite this generally unfavourable reception the score did, however, attract the admiration of the Director of Imperial Theatres who had commissioned it, Ivan Vsevolozhsky. One of Tchaikovsky’s greatest champions, Vsevolozhsky soon had the composer involved in another project for the Maryinsky Theatre, a double-bill comprising a one-act opera and a ballet.

As a basis for the opera Tchaikovsky chose the play King René’s Daughter by the Danish dramatist Henrik Hertz, the composer’s brother Modest providing the libretto. Vsevolozhsky himself picked the subject for the ballet, suggesting an adaptation of E. T. A Hoffmann’s story Nussknacker und Mausekönig (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King), an idea with which Tchaikovsky was initially very unhappy. When Vsevolozhsky dropped his opera The Queen of Spades from the Maryinsky Theatre early in 1891 after only thirteen performances, Tchaikovsky’s uneasiness turned to anger. In response to a sharply-worded inquiry Vsevolozhsky re-affirmed his faith in Tchaikovsky’s music, replying ‘On your Daughter of René and on Nutcracker I place all my hopes for the next season. This will be the chief attraction next winter’. Vsevolozhsky and his ballet-master Marius Petipa succeeded between them in persuading Tchaikovsky to start work on the new project and by 9th March he was able to write to his brother, ‘I am working extremely hard and am beginning to reconcile myself to the subject of the ballet’.

However, Tchaikovsky never did achieve full sympathy with the glittering, fairytale world of The Nutcracker, for he found it lacking any of the real dramatic and emotional tension that had inspired the two earlier ballets. Throughout 1891 work on the new ballet continued between conducting tours in Europe and America, although Tchaikovsky’s continual dissatisfaction with both the subject-matter and his own music, combined with personal grief at his sister’s death led him to consider abandoning the project. By August even Vsevolozhsky was beginning to share the composer’s doubts: ‘I feel bitter remorse for having requested this ballet from you’, he wrote, ‘I know you do not find it sympathetic’. However, the score of The Nutcracker was eventually finished in April 1892, although six dances were performed in concert earlier in March as The Nutcracker Suite.

Despite his unhappiness with the subject of the new ballet Tchaikovsky had been acquainted with the Hoffmann story for several years, as his friend the music critic Sergei Flerov had sent him a copy of his new translation in 1882. The adaptation of Hoffmann’s fantasy was undertaken by Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had already worked on The Sleeping Beauty. However, although the ageing Petipa drew up the two-act scenario from the French translation of Alexander Dumas père, he suddenly fell ill and most of the choreography was provided by his assistant Lev Ivanov, who was later to be responsible for the first successful production of Swan Lake. In adapting Nussknacker und Mausekönig for the stage most of the flavour of the original story was excised by Petipa and Ivanov and Hoffmann’s masterly, even frightening oscillation between fantasy and reality was transformed instead into an artificial world of childish, fairy-tale dreams providing much spectacle though little real drama.

Synopsis

Act I

After a lightly-scored overture in which a dream-world is skilfully depicted the curtain rises on the house of Councillor Silberhaus, President of the local town-council, where Christmas Eve is being celebrated. Silberhaus and his wife organise the decoration of the Christmas tree and after the owl clock has struck nine their children Clara and Fritz burst into the room with some friends (No. 1). Silberhaus calls for a march to be played and the children join in the lively dance around the room (No. 2). The march turns into a galop, the children’s parents enter dressed as fops and dandies and they dance to the popular French tune Bon voyage, cher Dumollet (No. 3).

Clara’s godfather Councillor Drosselmayer now enters and at first his odd appearance frightens the children. However, when he produces mechanical dolls and soldiers from a large cabbage and a pie the children cheer up and the toys begin to dance (No. 4). As Clara and Fritz are not allowed to take the toys away they become upset, but Drosselmayer soon comforts them with a new toy, a Nutcracker shaped like a man. Fritz manages to break the new toy, but Clara takes the Nutcracker and cradles it soothingly in her arms, singing a lullaby over it. The guests join in a final dance before departing (No. 5).

The children are sent off to bed, but Clara soon creeps back to see her beloved Nutcracker. As the owl dock strikes midnight it seems to take on Drosselmayer’s face and Clara collapses in fright as mice appear (No. 6). A fight now ensues with the gingerbread soldiers, who are eventually eaten up by the mice. The Nutcracker then engages in combat with the Mouse King, but is only victorious when Clara kills the Mouse King by throwing her slipper at it. Transforming himself into a handsome Prince the Nutcracker invites Clara to visit his kingdom (No. 7).

Guided by gnomes Clara and the Prince make their way through a snow-bedecked pine-forest (No. 8). When they arrive in the Prince’s country they are greeted by the King and Queen and the first act ends with monarch and subjects dancing the Waltz of the Snowflakes (No. 9).

Act II

The second act opens in the palace of the Kingdom of Sweets with the Sugar-Plum Fairy demonstrating the treasures of her realm (No. 10). (Tchaikovsky characterises the Sugar-Plum Fairy by using a celesta, an instrument he had only discovered in Paris in June 1891 and which he was to immortalise in the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy). Clara and the Prince are welcomed into the palace and the Prince then tells his sister of how Clara saved his life. A stately banquet is prepared in their honour and the guests sit down to be entertained (No. 11).

They are offered a divertissement of six dances (No. 12) in which Tchaikovsky skilfully conjures up a variety of national styles, weaving into his music several folk melodies such as the Georgian ‘Iav, nana’ in the Arabian Dance and the French ‘Giroflé girofIa’ in Mère Gigogne et les polichinelles. The entertainment ends with a dance for the attendants of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, the famous Waltz of the Flowers (No. 13). In the pas de deux following, a passionate prelude introduces a tarantella for the Prince, leading to the renowned Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (No. 14). With a concluding waltz the court celebrates the return of the Prince and pays tribute to Clara’s devotion (No. 15).

The première of the double-bill on 18th December 1892 provoked a very mixed reaction. ‘The success was not absolute’, wrote Tchaikovsky. ‘Apparently the opera (renamed Yolanta) gives pleasure, but the ballet not really.’ Today, however, Tchaikovsky’s score is enjoyed as a superb musical evocation of a childhood fantasy world and ranks as one of the most popular of all ballets.

Ewan West, 1986

The Nutcracker, Op. 71

Ballet in two Acts

Miniature Overture

Act I

No. 1 The Decoration of the Christmas Tree

No. 2 March

No. 3 Children’s Galop and Entry of the Parents

No. 4 Arrival of Drosselmayer

No. 5 Grandfather Dance

No. 6 Scena (Clara and the Nutcracker)

No. 7 Scena (Battle)

No. 8 Scena (In the pine-forest)

No. 9 Waltz of the Snowflakes

Act II

No. 10 Scena – The Kingdom of Sweets

No. 11 Scena (Clara and the Prince)

No. 12 Divertissement:

(a) Chocolate (Spanish dance)
(b) Coffee (Arab dance)
(c) Tea (Chinese dance)
(d) Trepak (Russian dance)
(e) Flutes/Tanz der Rohrflöten
(f) Mother Gigogne

No. 13 Waltz of the Flowers

No. 14 Pas de deux:

(a) Variation I – Tarantella
(b) Variation II – Sugar-Plum Fairy and coda
Pas de deux (coda)

No. 15 Final waltz and Apotheosis