Things I Love Thursday

What I love today--The Nutcracker! It was my first introduction to ballet performance when I was very small (about 4 the first time I saw it). My mother and aunt took me every year, and I looked forward to it so eagerly. Even now, just hearing those first opening notes gives me a Christmas thrill! I love going and seeing the girls in their beautiful party dresses, just as excited as I was, dreaming of being the Sugar Plum Fairy in her sparkly pink tutu.

Surprisingly, considering how prevalent it is now (and how many dance companies hang their finances on the holiday performances!) it was not a hit when it premiered in 1891. Tschaikovsky, who had just had a big hit with his score for The Sleeping Beauty, was commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theater at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevoloznsky, to set the score for a new adaptation of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by ETA Hoffmann. The plot of the poem is much more elaborate than that of the ballet, which is divided into two acts (the Christmas party at Clara's home, where she's gifted with a nutcracker by her godfather and later dreams the gift comes to life; and the Land of Sweets, a pretty much plotless stretch where various snowflakes and candies dance for Clara).

The ballet was to have its premier in December 1892, and before this Tschaikovsky selected 8 of the pieces from the ballet to present in concert form. The suite, first performed on March 19, 1892 before the St. Petersburg Musical Society, was better received than the ballet and became instantly popular. (The ballet didn't reach its current pinnacle of success until the 1950s). Tschaikovsky himself did not care for the music as much as he did for Sleeping Beauty and was initially reluctant to take on the task, though he did warm to it eventually.

The first performance was a double bill with the opera Iolanta, on December 18, 1892 at the Mariinsky Theater. There is some dispute whether Ivanov or Petipa was the original choreographer. It was conducted by Ricardo Drigo, with Antoinetta Dell-Eva as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Pavel Gerdt as the Prince. A shortened version was first performed outside Russia in Budapest in 1927. The first complete version was in England in 1934, staged by Nicolas Sergeyev after Petipa. The first US production was in New York with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (another shortened version), followed by a complete production by the San Francisco Ballet in 1944. Balanchine's staging of The Nutcracker began in 1954, and is going strong to this day.

Do you have any childhood memories of the ballet? What's your favorite part? (I do love the Waltz of the Flowers, but I also adore the strangely melancholy Grand pas de deux)