December, 2005 - Page 3
In 1816, E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote a story called, The Nutcracker and The King of Mice. The story was published in a book with other children's fairy tales even though Hoffmann never really intended the story for children. The story was about the German Stahlbaum family: the father, mother and children, Louisa, Marie and Fritz, and the party at their house on Christmas Eve. One of the guests was their Godfather Drosselmyer, a wonderful toymaker and clockmaker. He brings the Nutcracker as a gift to the party and then spends several nights telling the children stories about Princess Pirlipat, Queen Mouserinks and the challenge of cracking the hard nut. He tells how the Nutcracker rescues the Princess and why the mice are now at war with the Nutcracker.
In 1845, the French author, Alexandre Dumas (who also wrote The Three Musketeers) rewrote the story as L'Histore d'un Casse-Noisette (The Story of a Hazelnut-cracker.) This version was much sweeter than Hoffman's original, and it was this version that the director of the Imperial Theater in Russia, Vsevolojsky, wanted turned into a ballet. Vsevolojsky asked the famous choreographer, Marius Petipa and the composer, Tchaichovsky, to turn the story into the ballet "The Nutcracker of Nuremberg." They had worked together on the ballet "Sleeping Beauty." At first, Petipa and Tchaichovsky said, "no" because they didn't like the story and they didn't think the role of Marie was worthy of being played by a prima ballerina!
Petipa rewrote the story, adding the role of Sugar Plum Fairy to rule the Kingdom of Sweets and making this role worthy of being played by the prima ballerina. Drosselmyer and Marie were made into minor roles. Tchaichovsky agreed to write the music, but didn't like it and barely spent his time on it. During the choreographing of the ballet, Petipa became ill so his assistant Lev Ivanov was brought in to finish the ballet. The first performance of the Nutcracker ballet was on December 17, 1892. Czar Alexander III of Russia was at the ballet. He loved it, but the critics hated it!!
Many, many changes were made to Ivanov's choreography before the ballet was ever seen outside of Russia. In 1919, Alexander Gorsky presented a version where Masha (this is the name "Clara" in Russian) actually turns into the Sugar Plum Fairy and dances the grand pas de deux with the Nutcracker Prince. Another ballet director, Grigorovich took this version, but made Masha the only real character in the ballet. The whole story took place in her imagination! He had a single ballerina dance the roles of Masha, the Snow Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy!
In 1928, the Maryinsky Theater performed a controversial Nutcracker which was divided into 22 episodes and the dancers spoke some of the text from the original Hoffmann story. In 1934 Kirov was the director of the Maryinsky theater and he returned to a more traditional ballet. The famous ballet dancers Nureyev and Baryshnikov grew up watching this version of the ballet. When Nureyev began choreographing the ballet, he changed it so that Drosselmyer turned into the Nutcracker Prince! He used children only in the party scene. Baryshnikov turned the grand pas de deux(two dancers) into a grand pas de trois(three dancers) and had Drosselmyer come on to bring Clara back to reality.
Before anyone in the West saw a full version of the Nutcracker, they saw bits and pieces of the ballet performed seperately or in with other ballets. Most often the dances performed were the Dance of the Snowflakes, the Waltz of the Flowers or the grand pas de deux. Sometimes the music from The Nutcracker was put into other ballets!
The first full length production of The Nutcracker in America was on December 24, 1944 by the San Francisco Opera Ballet. It was difficult to put on this production because there wasn't even a copy of the full Tchaichovsky score. They had to take photographs of some of the music from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and then rewrite the music from the photographs! Also, because of the war, they were only allowed to use $1,000 for all the sets and 140 costumes!! Over the next several years the San Francisco Ballet performed the Nutcracker every Christmas season and it was a huge success! Other ballet companies across the country noticed what a great success the ballet was having and decided to perform their own versions. In 1954, the New York City Ballet, headed by George Balanchine, premiered their first full-length Nutcracker.
Even in the U.S. the Nutcracker has undergone changes to the story. Some companies have changed the opening Christmas party scene into Clara's birthday party in order to perform the show at other times of the year. Other dance companies have turned the ballet into modern dance, performing it in bare feet. Still others have changed it so the children are in an orphanage instead of at a Christmas party! This year, the Boston Ballet and BalletRox are performing "The urban Nutcracker" with the setting being modern Boston!
No matter which version you see, it has been taken in some way from a book written in Germany 189 years ago!! And no matter which production you see, the dancers and actors have put in a lot of hard work to bring the story to life!