The Nutcracker and the Mouse King ballet. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

On Christmas Eve, medical adviser Stahlbaum gathers guests at his house. The owner himself and his wife with their children, Marie and Franz, warmly welcome those who come to the holiday.

ACT ONE

In a cozy home, everything is ready for the holiday. Children are looking forward to Christmas gifts. The Christmas tree lit up with colorful lights, and adults and children began dancing. Parents give gifts to children. Suddenly a masked stranger appears on the threshold of the living room. He takes it off, and everyone recognizes the good Drrosselmeyer, Marie’s godfather. Drrosselmeyer performs magic tricks and then takes out the Nutcracker and begins to talk about the history of this doll.

The fairy tale is over, everyone applauds Drrosselmeyer. Marie asks to give her the Nutcracker. At this moment, Franz takes the doll away and breaks it. Drrosselmeyer drives away the obnoxious boy, repairs the Nutcracker and gives it to Marie.

The festive evening ends, the last dance is performed - the Grossvater. The guests leave. The Christmas tree goes out. Marie sneaks into the empty living room to take another look at the Nutcracker, who remains under the tree. As the clock strikes, as if by magic, Drosselmeyer appears.

Everything around begins to transform: the Christmas tree grows, and with it the room turns into a huge hall. The Nutcracker and toys also grow larger and come to life. Suddenly mice, led by the Mouse King, appear in the room. They are opposed by the brave Nutcracker with a small army of Christmas tree decorations. The battle begins: The Nutcracker bravely fights the mouse army, but the forces are not equal. A little more... and the Mouse King will gain the upper hand. Drrosselmeyer hands Marie a burning candle, which she, in despair, throws at the Mouse King. At this time, the Nutcracker managed to free himself. He pierces the Mouse King with his saber, and the remnants of the “gray” army flee in panic to their holes. The enemy is defeated. The spell has broken: Marie sees the handsome Prince in front of her.

Holding hands, Marie and the Prince join the magical round dance of snowflakes and rush through the starry sky to the Prince’s kingdom.

ACT TWO

Marie and the Prince admire starry sky. Drrosselmeyer follows them relentlessly. The magic ball on which they fly lands in front of the walls of the fairy-tale city. Drrosselmeyer goes to the castle gates and opens them with a magic key, then disappears unnoticed. Marie and the Prince enter the throne room. They are met by the King, Queen and a ceremonial retinue. Residents magical city they present gifts and arrange an extraordinary celebration, at the end of which Marie and the Prince dance.

Suddenly the figure of Drrosselmeyer appears... Everything froze: the castle walls disappear, the living room of the Stahlbaums’ house appears. In the corner of the room is a sleeping Marie with a Nutcracker doll. Waking up, the girl sees Drrosselmeyer. She runs up to him to thank him for the wonderful Christmas story.

Tchaikovsky. Nutcracker. Everyone famous names and names. But what kind of phenomenon is this?

What is it

One of the most famous Russian ballets. A story told by music that there is a place for miracles in the world of burghers. Through the efforts of composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) and librettist Marius Petipa, Hoffmann's fairy tale about the love of a kind girl and an enchanted youth turned into a dream ballet. “The Nutcracker” divided the history of ballet into “before” and “after”, becoming also famous ballet on the theme of Christmas.
Literary background Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann's tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" was published in 1816. Later it was included in the second section of the first volume of Hoffmann’s collection “The Serapion Brothers” (1819–1921). In this book, the narrator of the tale of the Nutcracker, the writer made one of the members of the literary “brotherhood” - Lothar, whose prototype is usually considered to be the writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouquet, the author of the famous fairy tale “Ondine”.

The Nutcracker described in the fairy tale is both a toy and a tableware for cracking nuts. Such figurines, called Nussknacker, have been common in Germany and Austria since the 18th century.
Hoffmann's manner of whimsically combining two worlds in one text - the real and the fantastic - also manifested itself in "The Nutcracker": the senior court adviser Drosselmeyer turns out to be a court watchmaker from the semi-fairy-tale Nuremberg, and the wooden nutcracker is the prince of Marzipan Castle. Unlike other fairy tales by Hoffmann (“The Golden Pot”, “Little Tsakhes”, “Lord of the Fleas”), in “The Nutcracker” there are practically no ironic motives addressed to the main characters - this is one of the most poetic texts in Hoffmann’s work.
The first two Russian translations of The Nutcracker appeared almost simultaneously, both in 1835. However, they were not the basis for the ballet libretto. In 1844, Hoffmann’s tale was retold in his own way by Alexandre Dumas (“The Story of the Nutcracker”). He freed Hoffmann's whimsical fantasy from many plot details, and made the Nutcracker Prince a dashing knight, somewhat similar to the heroes of his own novels. It was Dumas’ version that was imposed on Tchaikovsky and choreographer Marius Petipa by the director of the imperial theaters, Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Petipa set to work on the libretto.

Libretto

Marius Petipa as Taor. 1862
At the first stage, Petipa planned to introduce revolutionary themes into the ballet, even using the melody of “Carmagnola” in one of the fragments. The year was 1891, almost the centenary of the Great french revolution. From Petipa's plans for The Nutcracker: “A crowd of open men. Carmagnole. Let's dance Carmagnola! Long live the sound of guns! Queen's paspier. Good luck, dear du Mollet." The latter are words from a children's song, alluding to the flight of Charles X to England after the July Revolution of 1830 in France.
But we remember that the plot about the Nutcracker came to Petipa from the directorate of the imperial theaters. A ballet with a revolutionary theme would be denied access to the imperial stage. So all revolutionary motives were expelled from Petipa's final script.
The Hoffmann-Dumas plot also suffered: the entire backstory of the enchanted young man was dropped from the fairy tale. But the overall outline of the story has become compact and harmonious. In the first act, the main character receives a Nutcracker as a gift, who, at nightfall, together with the tin soldiers, fights against the mice led by the Mouse King. At the end of the first act, the girl saves the Nutcracker, he turns into a handsome prince and leads the girl with him to fairyland. In the finale she wakes up - it was just a dream.

Scene from the ballet "The Nutcracker". Mariinsky Theatre, 1892
Many motifs from Petipa's libretto are omitted from most productions of The Nutcracker. For example, a snowstorm that hits the main characters (after all, happiness can only be achieved by going through trials) usually turns into a harmless “waltz of snowflakes.” The toy trampoline, which pushes tin soldiers onto the stage, ready to fight with mice, disappears. The famous Adagio in the original is danced not by the main character and the Prince, as one might think, but by the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Orshad, who was already renamed Prince Whooping Cough at the premiere (translated from French as “favorite”).
In Hoffmann's fairy tale, the name of the main character is Marie, and one of her dolls is called Clara. Petipa named the girl herself Clara. The difficulties with the name did not end there: in Soviet times, a tradition arose to call the main character the Russified name Masha. Then they began to call the heroine in the Hoffmannian way - Marie. The name Clara, which appears in Petipa's script and Tchaikovsky's score, should be considered authentic.

Music

The music was difficult to compose. In February 1891, Tchaikovsky informed his brother: “I am working as hard as I can, I am beginning to come to terms with the plot of the ballet.” In March: “The main thing is to get rid of ballet.” In April: “I carefully exerted all my strength to work, but nothing came out except abomination.” Even later: “What if it turns out that... ‘The Nutcracker’ is disgusting...”

P. I. Tchaikovsky, 1893
The early 1890s became a time for the composer to reflect on life and death. In 1891, his sister Alexandra Davydova-Tchaikovskaya died, and he took her death very painfully. Ahead were the composer's most tragic works - "The Queen of Spades" and the Sixth Symphony. In recent years, musicology has expressed the idea that “The Nutcracker” is a work from the same series, a ballet about death and immortality, and everything that happens to the heroine happens in some other world. Perhaps the snowstorm is a metaphor for the transition from earthly life to another state, and Confiturenburg is paradise. In the Waltz of the Snow Flakes and in the famous Adagio, by the way, there is very scary music, even though it is in a major key.
The first part of the ballet is pure action. The second, with the exception of the finale, is a usual divertissement for ballet of that time. The idea of a confectionery divertissement in Confiturenburg, the city of sweets, did not particularly appeal to Tchaikovsky himself; however, he coped with the task brilliantly.

Alexandra Ilyinichna Davydova, sister of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
There are several layers to the music of The Nutcracker. There are scenes for children and adults, fantastic and romantic, and there are divertissement dances. There are many allusions in music to XVIII culture centuries: this, for example, is the gallant Dance of the Shepherdesses, and the Chinese dance, which is rather pseudo-Chinese (there is such a term as “chinoiserie”, that is, “Chinese”). And the romantic fragments most associated with emotional sphere, become an occasion for the composer to make personal, very intimate statements. Their essence is not easy to decipher and very interesting to interpret.
On the path of symphonizing music, the composer went very far even compared to “ Swan Lake"(1876) and "Sleeping Beauty" (1889). The composer frames the divertissement that the choreographer demanded of him with music saturated with genuine drama. The scene of the growth of the Christmas tree in the first act is accompanied by music of a symphonic scale: from the alarming, “nightly” sound, a beautiful, endlessly flowing melody grows. The culmination of the entire ballet was the Adagio, which, according to Petipa's plan, was danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Orshad.
In March 1892, a suite from the ballet was presented to the public. She had great success: out of six numbers, five were repeated at the request of the public.

First interpretation

The Nutcracker and Petipa missed each other. It is believed that the choreographer, depressed after the death of his daughter, transferred all the work to his assistant Lev Ivanov. In collaboration with him, Tchaikovsky completed his ballet.
Subsequently, after the premiere, newspapers reported that Petipa intended to present a new version of it. However, these plans were not destined to come true: the choreographer never returned to his project.
The ballet premiered on December 6 (December 18, New Style) 1892 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg on the same evening as the opera Iolanta. The roles of Clara and Fritz were performed by children studying at the St. Petersburg Imperial Theater School.

Fragment of the play “The Nutcracker” staged by the Imperial Mariinsky Theater, 1892
The question of how many of Petipa’s ideas were transferred into Ivanov’s choreography is debatable. Ivanov mainly illustrated the plot, not paying attention to the dramatic possibilities of the score. It was with him that the snowstorm turned into a harmless waltz of snow flakes. Critics called the second act of the ballet vulgar: the ballet dancers, dressed in rich brioche buns, were perceived as a challenge good taste. Tchaikovsky himself was also dissatisfied with the production. Last time Ivanov's performance was resumed in 1923, after which he disappeared forever from the stage of the Mariinsky Theater.

Other interpretations

A new look at Tchaikovsky's ballet was presented by choreographer Alexander Gorsky and artist Konstantin Korovin (1919, Bolshoi Theater). In their performance, the stage was a set table with a huge coffee service, from which the dancers emerged. In the finale, Gorsky left Clara in mystical dream. Instead of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Whooping Cough, Gorsky gave Adagio to little heroes - Clara and Prince Nutcracker. This idea turned out to be so good that it firmly took root in Russia.

K.A. KOROVIN. Prop design for the ballet “The Nutcracker” by P.I. Tchaikovsky. Chinese house. 1919 - Tretyakov Gallery
Vasily Vainonen went even further. He corrected Petipa's plot, forcing the children to grow up in the finale of the first act, and revealed in the ballet the story of a girl who fell in love with an ugly doll (he named her Masha, and this name took root in Russian productions for a long time). Following Gorsky, Vainonen removed Whooping Cough with the Sugar Plum Fairy. The overall tone of the performance was light; it was perfect children's performance with fantastic magic tricks, colorful dolls and a Christmas tree sparkling with festive lights. The choreographer ignored the tragic motives. In the finale, the Nutcracker and Masha, as expected in a fairy tale, turned into the Prince and Princess. This performance has become a kind of emblem of the Mariinsky Theater.
Yuri Grigorovich, starting from Tchaikovsky’s music, once again rewrote the libretto, borrowing best ideas in Gorsky and Vainonen. Grigorovich was the first in Russia to create a philosophical parable from The Nutcracker about the unattainability of ideal happiness. In this performance, Masha, who said goodbye to her childhood in a dream, woke up in her room in the finale - again a girl and again among toys. This story was set to Tchaikovsky’s music with amazing precision and harmony, revealing its dramatic potential.
Meanwhile, the tradition of the magnificent pre-revolutionary “Nutcracker” was continued by the great ballet reformer George Balanchine, the creator of plotless choreographic productions, who had a significant influence on the development of the choreographic school in the USA (1954, New York City Ballet). Once upon a time, while still a student at the ballet school in St. Petersburg, he participated in the very performance that disappointed Tchaikovsky. Many years later, he decided to build on Ivanov’s ideas and stage a magnificent divertissement, in which the plot itself was relegated to the background. Balanchine's children, having found themselves in confectionery heaven, remain children and look at the miracles happening from the outside. The Adagio is danced by the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier (as Balanchine called Prince Whooping Cough). Although in philosophical meanings The choreographer did not delve into Tchaikovsky's music; his version became the most popular in the USA: many American directors of The Nutcracker still rely on it.
In 1973, the ballet “The Nutcracker” was combined with the art of animation (the cartoon director was Boris Stepantsev). The audience was amazed - and still is - by the imagination of its authors: in the initial episode a broom dances with Masha, and in the Waltz of the Flowers the Prince and Masha fly into the skies, like Chagall's heroes. And even though the main character, contrary to Hoffmann, Dumas and Petipa, turned into a servant girl, this version of “The Nutcracker” became no less classic in Russia than Grigorovich’s ballet.
Among the 21st century versions, we note the production of “The Nutcracker” by artist Mikhail Shemyakin and choreographer Kirill Simonov 10. The ideologist of the play, Shemyakin, took liberties with the plot, but latently resurrected the spirit of Hoffmann, staging the ballet as an evil grotesque about the kingdom of mice. In the finale, the rats eat Masha and the Nutcracker, who have turned into candied dolls.

P. Tchaikovsky. "Nutcracker". Mariinsky Theater. Musical director and conductor Valery Gergiev, scenery, costumes and production by Mikhail Shemyakin, choreography by Kirill Simonov. Scene from the play. Photo by N. Razina
The memory that the premiere of “The Nutcracker” took place on the same evening as the premiere of “Iolanta” prompted director Sergei Zhenovach to again combine these two works. In 2015, when he staged “Iolanta” at the Bolshoi Theater, he preceded it with a suite from “The Nutcracker” and forced the blind Iolanta to listen to the music of the ballet and empathize with it.
We can hear music from The Nutcracker not only in opera houses or concert halls. She sounds behind the scenes in many films (“Home Alone”), cartoons (“Tom and Jerry”), and television series (“Friends”).
Christmas ballet There are several musical and stage works that are perceived all over the world as Christmas or New Year's. In Germany, this is the opera “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck (although its plot has nothing to do with Christmas), in Austria - the operetta “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss, in the USA and Russia - the ballet “The Nutcracker”.

“The Nutcracker”, Bolshoi Theatre, 2014
The American tradition of performing The Nutcracker for Christmas owes its origin to Balanchine. "The Nutcracker" in the USA is synonymous with Christmas and children's winter holidays. Any, even the smallest, ballet company, every ballet school shows his version of the ballet in December. In meaning, many of them go back to Balanchine’s magnificent production and differ little from each other.
IN Soviet era“The Nutcracker” was, for obvious reasons, considered a New Year’s ballet. Many cultural phenomena, at least somewhat connected with the Christmas holiday, in those years they were attached to New Year's theme. Tickets for New Year's performances of "The Nutcracker" at the Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Mikhailovsky theaters, at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater were sold out long before the New Year.
After the 1990s, when Christmas again became an official holiday, the Nutcracker ballet instantly gained the status of the main Christmas ballet. And even though its content goes far beyond the scope of a religious holiday, “The Nutcracker” always gives viewers and listeners a real Christmas miracle.

The Christmas holidays are an event that both adults and children look forward to with equal joy. This is a magical time of beauty, comfort and hospitality in every home.

Theaters are also waiting for guests. According to established tradition, they celebrate the New Year with a performance of the ballet “The Nutcracker”. Created by the genius P.I. Tchaikovsky, it became a symbol and obligatory attribute of the holiday. The atmosphere of faith in goodness is created by magnificent music and a touching plot based on Ernst Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”.

Action 1

The first act begins with Christmas Eve in the home of the Stahlbaum family. The holiday is in full swing, the guests are dancing. Fairies invisible to the eye bring happiness and love to the house. A magnificent Christmas tree, decorated with sweets and candles, attracts everyone to the living room, where children are already having fun, waiting for gifts. Among them is little Marie, the main character of the fairy tale. Suddenly a man in a terrible mask appears in the room. Frightened adults and children soon recognize him as the puppeteer Drosselmeyer, the children's godfather.

He brought them his puppets as a gift - Ballerina, Clown and Moor. But kind and quiet Marie is offended by the wayward old man for his terrible appearance. To calm her down, Drosselmeyer performs magic tricks and then surprises everyone with another toy. He takes out of his bag a ridiculous and ugly Nutcracker - a doll that is used to crack nuts. The children laugh at him, no one wants to take him for themselves. And only Marie asks to give her an awkward little man. She feels that the fairy tale told by her godfather is not fiction.

The mischievous prankster Fritz, Marie's brother, grabs the Nutcracker and deliberately breaks it. Drosselmeyer, having repaired the toy, returns it to Marie and calms her down.

The bright celebration continues, guests dance the traditional Grosvater dance. But the impressionable Marie finds the fun too wild. A carnival masks adults - became threatening and looked like terrible monsters.

Finally, the holiday is coming to an end and it’s time for the children to go to bed. The good Fairies visit them, they lull Marie and she falls into sleep, clutching a mysterious toy. She dreams that she is returning to the living room to wish Good night To the Nutcracker. But suddenly the room becomes huge, the tree grows and frightened Marie sees the Mouse King. He leads a huge army of mice, all of them attacking the girl. Suddenly, a revived Nutcracker stands in their way. He bravely defends his princess, but the mice surround him and tie him up. Desperate Marie takes off her shoe, throws it at the mice and falls unconscious.

Waking up, she saw Drosselmeyer in the robes of a glorious wizard. Praising the girl for her help and courage, he told her about beautiful country eternal joy. The godfather's invitation was accepted and Marie and the Nutcracker set off.

Act 2

The second act takes the viewer to the city of Confiturnburg, the capital of the Kingdom of Sweets. Here Prince Orshad and the Sugar Plum Fairy are already waiting for Marie to arrive. They declare her a princess and give her an invitation to a ball in her honor. Marie and the Nutcracker are dancing, but suddenly the living room of their home appears again. The girl wakes up and hurries to her godfather to say thanks to him for the journey into magic.

Anyone who finds themselves in the fabulous atmosphere of the ballet “The Nutcracker” experiences a similar feeling.

Picture or drawing of Tchaikovsky's Ballet - The Nutcracker

The history of the ballet

In 1890, P. I. Tchaikovsky was asked to write a one-act opera and ballet - it was assumed that both works would be performed on the same evening. The composer began working together with choreographer Marius Petipa - they constantly discussed the smallest details of the future production. Pyotr Ilyich continued to work on music even while traveling by ship to the USA - he took part in the opening of the famous Carnegie Hall.

By February 1892, the performance was completely finished - the Russian Musical Society very favorably accepted the premiere of the suite from “The Nutcracker”, and the first production on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater took place in December of the same year

Literary basis of the plot

The primary source is Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” published in 1861. According to it, the girl Marichen Stahlbaum receives a rather ugly doll as a gift - nutcrackers. At that time in Germany it was believed that nutcrackers brought good luck to the home, so giving them as a gift was quite common.

At night, the Nutcracker comes to life and enters into battle with a horde of mice. Godfather Drosselmeyer told the girl this morning mysterious story about his nephew, who was bewitched by the cruel Mouse King. Then Marichen and her dolls Clara and the Nutcracker are attacked by mice again - after defeating them, they go together to the magical kingdom, where the girl becomes a real princess.

On French The fairy tale was translated by Emile Labedollier, and then the creator of “The Three Musketeers”, Alexandre Dumas, worked on the artistic adaptation and colorization of the translation. It was his version that was taken as the basis when working on the ballet.

Performance at the Mariinsky Theater

“The Nutcracker” and the opera “Iolanta” were shown before the New Year at the Mariinsky Theater - Vsevolozhsky designed the costumes, and R. Drigo conducted the productions. The public liked the opera better, and critics generally received the premiere rather coolly. Since then, these two works have never been staged in the same program.

Nevertheless, the production remained in the Mariinsky repertoire for another three decades - and quite soon the airy, light and melodic performance became very popular with the public, and the tradition of giving minor roles students of specialized institutions remained from the time of the ballet's premiere and has survived to this day.

“The Nutcracker” at the Bolshoi Theater

The Bolshoi staged the ballet 27 years after the Mariinsky Theater - already in a country destroyed by revolution and war - but even then the production was done on a grand scale. In the first version of 1919, the stage was designed as a huge table on which stood a coffee service, and dancers fluttered out of it as the plot unfolded. The scenery was painted by the artist Konstantin Korovin, and the choreography was then staged by Alexander Gorsky.

The Moscow version of the ballet had the most resounding success - it was “The Nutcracker” staged by Yuri Grigorovich that triumphantly toured the whole world - since 1966 this ballet has not left the Bolshoi Theater repertoire.

“The Nutcracker” on the world stage

The ballet has been successfully performed on the stage of other countries for more than a century - the costumes and interpretation of the choreography in different productions differ, but it still remains the festive and magical “Nutcracker”. One of the brightest and most notable versions is from choreographer George Balanchine. New York audiences saw it for the first time in 1954, and since then the number of fans of this production has only been growing.

The music of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s ballet was also used to create full-length cartoons of magical beauty: in 1940, the Walt Disney studio released the film “Fantasia,” and Boris Stepantsev created an animated film based on Hoffmann’s fairy tale - many generations of Soviet children grew up on it.

The first production of the ballet at the Mariinsky Theater amazed the audience primarily with the power of the orchestra's sound. Special attention attracted the celesta instrument.

The “Coffee” dance is based on an ancient Georgian folk lullaby, and during the mesmerizing dance of snowflakes, confetti slowly falls onto the stage - its total weight is about 20 kg.

During the entire performance, approximately 150 different costumes are changed, and about 60 people must always be behind the scenes to change equipment, apply makeup and change dancers’ outfits.

Dancer Frank Russell Galey became the oldest performer of the role of the Nutcracker - at the time of the performance he was 74 years and 101 days, which is an absolute record for an active ballet soloist in history.

The famous blond prankster from “Home Alone” Macaulay Culkin was also a Nutcracker - he played two roles in the Hollywood ballet film, in addition to the role of a wooden doll, he had the opportunity to play Drosselmeyer’s nephew in the film adaptation of Balanchine’s stage version.

Conductor Stephen Richman managed to persuade the famous jazzman Duke Ellington to do the incredible - to release his own original interpretation of ballet music. The double disc was released in 1960 and was called The Nutcracker Suites. In the first part you can hear a traditional suite, while in the second Ellington, together with his colleagues in the jazz workshop, perform their original arrangements. The key role in them is given to the clarinet, trumpet, saxophone and piano. Despite the unexpected sound, the suite has not lost any of its festiveness, lightness and charm.

President Zilbergauz
His wife
Clara (Marie), their daughter
Fritz, their son
Marianna, the President's niece
Advisor Drosselmeyer, godfather of the Zilberghaus children
Nutcracker
Sugar Plum Fairy, mistress of sweets
Prince Whooping Cough (Orshad)
Majordomo
Mother Zhigon
Mouse King
Dolls: Canteen, Soldier, Columbine, Harlequin
Relatives, guests in carnival costumes, children, servants, mice, gingerbread and tin soldiers, dolls, toys, gnomes, bunnies; fairies, sweets, sisters of Prince Nutcracker, clowns, flowers, silver soldiers, pages, Moors, etc.

The action takes place in one of the German principalities in the era of Hoffmann (the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries) and in fairytale city Confiturenburg.

History of creation

In 1890, Tchaikovsky received an order from the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters for a one-act opera and a two-act ballet to be staged on the same evening. For the opera, the composer chose the plot of his favorite drama by the Danish writer H. Herz, “King René’s Daughter” (“Iolanta”), and for the ballet - famous fairy tale E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” from the collection “Serapion’s Brothers” (1819-1821). The fairy tale was used not in the original, but in a French retelling made by A. Dumas the Father called “The Story of the Nutcracker.” Tchaikovsky, according to his brother Modest, himself first “set out in writing the plot of The Nutcracker from the words of Vsevolozhsky” and only then began working together with choreographer Marius Petipa (1818-1910), who made a detailed order plan and choreographer’s exposition. The renowned master, who by that time had served in Russia for more than forty years and had staged many performances, gave Tchaikovsky the most detailed advice regarding the nature of the music.

The composer's work was forcedly interrupted in the spring of 1891, when Tchaikovsky went to the USA to grand opening Carnegie Hall. He was composing even on the ship, but, realizing that he would not meet the deadline set by the management, he sent Vsevolozhsky a letter from Paris asking him to postpone the premieres of “Iolanta” and “The Nutcracker” to the next season. Only upon returning from the trip did the work become more active. During January and February 1892, Tchaikovsky completed and orchestrated the ballet. In March in one of symphony concerts The Russian Musical Society performed a suite of music for the ballet under the direction of the composer himself. The success was deafening: out of six numbers, five were repeated at the request of the public.

According to the script and detailed instructions of the seriously ill Petipa, the production of “The Nutcracker” was carried out by the second choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater L. Ivanov (1834-1901). Lev Ivanovich Ivanov, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Theater School in 1852, was finishing his career as a dancer at that time and had already worked as a choreographer for seven years. In addition to several ballets, he staged Polovtsian dances in Borodin’s “Prince Igor” and dances in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera-ballet “Mlada.” V. Krasovskaya wrote: “Ivanov’s dance thinking was not based on Tchaikovsky’s music, but lived according to its laws.<...>Ivanov, in individual elements of his production, seemed to completely dissolve in the music, and from its innermost depths drew all the calm, pure, even modest plasticity of the dance.” “There is not a single rhythm, not a single beat in the music of The Nutcracker that would not flow into dance,” noted A. Volynsky. It was in music that the choreographer found the source of choreographic solutions. This was especially clearly demonstrated in the innovative symphonized dance of snow flakes.

Rehearsals for the ballet began at the end of September 1892. The premiere took place on December 6 (18). Criticism was controversial - both positive and sharply negative. However, the ballet remained in the repertoire of the Mariinsky Theater for more than thirty years. In 1923, the performance was restored by choreographer F. Lopukhov (1886-1973). In 1929, he created a new choreographic version of the performance. In the original script, the heroine of the ballet was called Clara, but in the Soviet years she began to be called Masha (in Dumas - Marie). Later, the ballet was staged on various Soviet stages by different choreographers.

Plot

Christmas Eve at the Silberghaus house. Guests gather for a celebration. Clara, Fritz and their little guests are brought into the hall. Everyone is delighted with the decorated Christmas tree. Gifts are given to children. The clock strikes midnight, and with its last strike Clara Drosselmeyer's godfather appears. A skilled craftsman, he brings as a gift huge mechanical dolls - the Cantante, the Soldier, the Harlequin and Columbine. The children joyfully thank their kind godfather, but Zilbergaus, fearing that they will spoil the gifts, orders them to be taken to his office. Consoling the distressed Clara and Fritz, Drosselmeyer takes a funny little Nutcracker out of his pocket and shows him gnawing nuts. Children are happy new toy, but then they quarrel over her. Fritz forces the Nutcracker to crack the hardest nuts, and the Nutcracker's jaw breaks. Fritz irritably throws the Nutcracker to the floor, but Klara picks him up, rocks him like a small child, puts him on the crib of his favorite doll and wraps him in a blanket. Zilberghaus orders the furniture to be taken out of the living room in order to arrange it general dance. At the end of the dancing, the children are sent to bed. Guests and hosts disperse.

Moonlight falls through the window of the empty hall. Clara enters: she cannot sleep because she is worried about the Nutcracker. Rushing, running and scratching can be heard. The girl becomes scared. She wants to run away, but big wall clock the time begins to tick. Clara sees that instead of an owl, the Drosselmeister is sitting on the clock, flapping the skirts of his caftan like wings. Lights flicker from all sides - the eyes of mice filling the room. Clara runs to the Nutcracker's crib. The tree begins to grow and becomes huge. The dolls come to life and run around in fear. Gingerbread soldiers line up. The battle with the mice begins. The Nutcracker, rising from bed, orders the alarm to be sounded. Boxes with tin soldiers are opened, the Nutcracker army is formed into a battle square. The mouse army attacks, the soldiers bravely resist the onslaught, and the mice retreat. Then the Mouse King enters the duel. He is ready to kill the Nutcracker, but Clara takes off her shoe and throws it at the King. The Nutcracker wounds him, and he, along with the rest of the army, flees the battlefield. The Nutcracker with a naked sword in his hand approaches Clara. He turns into beautiful young man and asks the girl to follow him. Both are hiding in the branches of the Christmas tree.

The hall turns into winter forest. Snow is falling in large flakes and a blizzard is rising. The wind blows the dancing snowflakes. Gradually the snowstorm subsides, and the snow sparkles elegantly in the moonlight.

The fabulous city of Confiturenburg. At the Palace of Sweets, the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Whooping Cough await the arrival of Clara and Prince Nutcracker. Everything is ready for gala reception dear guests. Clara and the Nutcracker sail down the river in a boat made of gilded shells. Everyone bows respectfully to the newcomers. Clara is amazed at the wealth of the city spread out before her. The Nutcracker says that he owes his salvation to Clara. The holiday begins, in which the mistress of sweets, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Mother Zhigon and other fairy-tale characters take part.

Music

In his latest ballet, Tchaikovsky addresses the same theme that was embodied in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty - overcoming evil spells with the power of love. The composer goes even further along the path of symphonizing music, enriching it with all possible expressive means. A fusion of expressive and figurative, theatricality and deep psychologism occurs here in a surprisingly natural way.

The scene of the growth of the Christmas tree in Act I is accompanied by music of a truly symphonic scale - at first alarming, ghostly, depicting the bustle of mice and strange night visions, it gradually expands, blossoms with a beautiful endlessly unfolding melody. The music subtly embodies everything that happens in the subsequent scene: the shouts of the sentry, the drumming, the military, albeit toy, fanfares, the squeaking of mice, the tension of the fight, and the wonderful transformation of the Nutcracker. The Waltz of Snowflakes perfectly conveys the feeling of cold, the game moonlight and at the same time - the contradictory feelings of the heroine, who finds herself in a mysterious magical world. The divertimento of Act II includes various dances: the dance of chocolate (brilliant Spanish), coffee (refined and languid oriental), tea (brightly characteristic, rich comic effects Chinese), as well as lively, in the folk spirit, Russian trepak; gracefully stylized dance of shepherdesses; comic dance of Mother Zhigon with children crawling out from under her skirt. The pinnacle of the divertissement is the famous Waltz of the Flowers with its variety of melodies, symphonic development, pomp and solemnity. The dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is amazingly graceful and subtle. The lyrical culmination of the entire ballet is the adagio (in the original production - the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince, now - Clara and the Nutcracker).

L. Mikheeva

In the photo: “The Nutcracker” staged by Grigorovich at the Bolshoi Theater

As was expected at that time, critics desperately criticized the new product. And the music is not danceable, and the plot is not for Bolshoi ballet, and the main roles are played by green youth from Theater School: Clara - Stanislava Belinskaya, Nutcracker - Sergei Legat. Italian ballerina Antonietta Dell'Era (the Sugar Plum Fairy) also did not make a good impression, dancing her part in only two performances. Subsequently, Ivanov’s performance was revived in his native theater twice (1909, 1923), but already from the mid-1920s it left the stage forever. Its plot basis was flawed primarily in relation to the main character; she was deprived of the opportunity to express herself in dance. And the ending of the whole story remained open: either Clara had to wake up, or remain forever in the fairy-tale kingdom of sweets?

Only retrograde balletomanes could doubt the quality of Tchaikovsky's music. Critic Boris Asafiev wrote about it: “The Nutcracker is the most perfect artistic phenomenon: a symphony about childhood. No, or rather, about when childhood is at a turning point. When the hopes of an as yet unknown youth are already exciting... When dreams carry thoughts and feelings forward, and the unconscious - into a life only anticipated. It’s as if the walls of a child’s room are moving apart and the thought-dream of the heroine and hero breaks out into a fresh space - into the forest, nature, towards the winds, the blizzard, further to the stars and into the pink sea of hopes.”

This characteristic of the composer’s intention is very insightful, but such music has a very indirect relation to the plot of “The Nutcracker” proposed by Petipa. The score of the second act contains many tragic intonations, characteristic of Tchaikovsky's symphonic works, but which do not fit in with the thoughtless gingerbread plot. Most subsequent productions of The Nutcracker, modifying Petipa's script, tried to combine it with their own understanding of Tchaikovsky's music. However, complete success along this path, even if possible, has not yet been achieved.

The next choreographer who dared to independently interpret “The Nutcracker” was Alexander Gorsky. The choreographer divided his ballet into three acts, moving the final duet to the winter scene. Clara and the Nutcracker danced it. The last act was an outright divertissement. In this performance, as in all subsequent domestic productions, there was no place for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her faithful gentleman with the ridiculous name Whooping Cough. The Moscow novelty, shown in 1919, which was not very suitable for ballet, did not live long.

Even more decisive was Fyodor Lopukhov, who headed the St. Petersburg ballet in the 1920s. In 1929, he staged The Nutcracker in 3 acts and 22 episodes - as “a figment of a child’s imagination.” Five episodes showed the Christmas holidays, four told (according to Hoffmann) the story of a young man’s transformation into the Nutcracker, and the rest celebrated the irrepressible fantasy of Masha’s dreams. Note that from now on in Russia the heroine of the ballet will be called not Clara, but Masha (in Hoffmann - Marie). Where there was a lack of music, the action went without it, sometimes the artists addressed the audience with speeches. The decorations consisted of eight large billboards on wheels, painted in different colors. The avant-garde “Nutcracker” was scolded, according to the choreographer, “not only by enemies - God himself commanded them - but also by like-minded people.” The performance, undoubtedly inspired by Vsevolod Meyerhold's directorial decisions of Russian classic plays, was performed only 9 times.

Naturally, the theater where The Nutcracker was born wanted to have this ballet in its permanent repertoire. A new production in 1934 was entrusted to choreographer Vasily Vainonen. In his performance, he relied on the traditions of ballet from the times of Petipa and Ivanov, skillfully alternating large classical ensembles(waltz of snowflakes, pink waltz, Masha's adagio with four gentlemen) with characteristic dances and pantomime. In general, the new performance adhered to the old plot, although there were plenty of adjustments. Drosselmeyer, in the Stahlbaums’ house (Masha’s parents have returned their “Hoffman” name), in addition to the clockwork dolls (Pagliacco, Doll, Negro), shows the children a puppet show from behind a screen: “The Nutcracker is in love with the princess, but she is being pursued by the rat king. The princess is terrified, the Nutcracker comes to the rescue and beats up the rat king.”

Thus, viewers who have not read the literary original should understand the background of the upcoming night battle more clearly. The scene of the war between rats and toys was separated into a separate act and took place in Masha's dream. The painting with the Waltz of Snowflakes continued the second act and took place on a “deserted night street.” The waltz itself sounded both like a lyrical digression dedicated to the magical patterns of the Russian winter, and like the glorification of a brave girl by a choir of children's voices. The third act began in a toy store. Here a mysterious dwarf (Drosselmeyer in disguise) makes fun of Masha, as if testing her once again, until the Nutcracker Prince drives him away. The toy shop is transformed and the holiday begins. Characteristic dances give way to a pink waltz, then Masha, already in a classic tutu, carefree dances a spectacular adagio with four gentlemen. The general code suddenly ends, the Nutcracker freezes - the dream is over. In the short finale, the viewer sees a sleeping girl outside the window. A lamp maker extinguishes street lights...

The new performance turned out to be successful; it has been performed on its native stage for more than 70 years, exceeding 300 performances. However, not without changes. In 1947, the rats were replaced by less scary mice, and the dwarf at the beginning of the last act also disappeared. In 1954, a magnificent set design by Simon Virsaladze appeared. The image of the first picture became more magical, the tree, sometimes silver-pink, sometimes black, matched state of mind heroine, and the celebration of the final act appeared more harmonious, without excessive beauty. In general, “The Nutcracker” by Vainonen - Virsaladze became classical ballet XX century. In 1958, the theater donated this performance to the Choreographic School, and since then, each new generation of the Academy of Russian Ballet dances it on the theater stage to the delight of their fathers and mothers, and with them the numerous spectators.

When Yuri Grigorovich showed his “Nutcracker” at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater in 1966, it seemed to many that the ideal solution to Tchaikovsky’s score had been found. Mainly adhering to Petipa's script, the choreographer managed to create a performance with continuous action. His heroes, surrounded by doll friends, after a serious battle, embark on a fabulous journey up a giant Christmas tree. Snowflakes hide them from the mouse chase, their friends entertain them with “puppet” parodies of typical dances in ancient ballets. Close to the top, in the Christmas tree temple, the magical wedding of Masha and the Nutcracker takes place.

Grigorovich's solution to the image of the Nutcracker was unusual. Actually, the doll appeared already in the prologue in the hands of Drosselmeyer, “flying” for the holiday, then the godfather gave Masha a living doll, the “breakage” of which could not leave either the girl or the viewer indifferent. And finally, after defeating a horde of mice in a scarlet robe, a truly fairy-tale hero-prince appeared. Drosselmeyer’s image has also become larger. He tests the souls of the heroes with everything beautiful and terrible that happens in a good fairy tale. He is both merciful and cunning, invisible and omnipresent. With this character, Hoffmann comes into the play, or rather Hoffmannian, enlightened by the music of Tchaikovsky. Grigorovich's performance does not leave the stage Bolshoi Theater For almost 40 years, it has been shown on television several times with different casts; there is also a television film made in 1977. However, the search for other solutions to The Nutcracker continued.

Abroad, Lev Ivanov's performance was first reconstructed by Nikolai Sergeev in London in 1934. Another former pupil of the Mariinsky Theater, George Balanchine, repeatedly participated in the original St. Petersburg production - from children's roles to buffoon dancing. In his “The Nutcracker” (New York City Hall, 1954), he, keeping Petipa’s script with the Sugar Plum Fairy and Confiturenburg, composed new dances and mise-en-scène. However, already productions by Rudolf Nureyev (London Royal Ballet, 1968) and Mikhail Baryshnikov ( American theater ballet, 1976) were influenced by the performances of Vainonen and Grigorovich.

Since then, numerous Christmas performances of “The Nutcracker” have been fundamentally different, either in the dance-full part of Clara and an attempt at at least some Hoffmannianism, or in the conscious emphasis on the holiday in the city of sweets, led by the Sugar Plum Fairy.

There are also more unconventional solutions to the ancient ballet, however, perhaps the most unexpected was realized in 2001 at the Mariinsky Theater. The initiator and director was not the choreographer, but the artist Mikhail Shemyakin. In the new “Nutcracker,” he owns not only the scenery and costumes, but also the active reworking of the libretto and even the mise-en-scène. All that remained for choreographer Kirill Simonov was the creation of individual dances.

Already in the first scenes we are presented with a grotesque world of bourgeois abundance: huge hams, meat carcasses, giant wine bottles. Here the Christmas holiday is just an occasion for abundant food and drink, and dancing is convenient way shake your stomach. In this little world, Masha is an unloved daughter, whose loneliness and painful fantasies are of no interest to either parents or guests. Only Drosselmeyer, out of pity, gives her the Nutcracker, who becomes her long-awaited friend.

In the night battle scene, the audience's eyes literally run wild. It’s not a pitiful flock of mice fighting with toys, but a whole kingdom of rats: a seven-headed emperor with his family, a bishop with his retinue, officers in camisoles and swords, soldiers and even artillerymen. The traditional throw of the shoe stops the bloody battle, and Masha and the Nutcracker fly into another, beautiful world in a huge airplane shoe. An evil snowstorm stands in their way: a female corps de ballet in black tights, skirts and hats, on which snow flakes sway menacingly. Tchaikovsky's beautiful music, performed at a deliberately fast tempo, suddenly becomes aggressive. The bright choreographic image of an unkind blizzard matches it - an undoubted success of the choreographer. Having overcome these trials, the heroes arrive in the second act.

In the city, caramel columns are covered with flies and caterpillars, huge figures of candy canes are marching, and a man-fly is fighting with the Nutcracker with swords. Masha finally kisses the Nutcracker and he turns into the Prince. The characters' pas de deux and the general waltz inspire some hope, but the finale is terrifying. A multi-story cake grows in the middle of Confiturenburg, it is crowned with marzipan figures of Masha and the Nutcracker, and insatiable little rats are already frolicking in its middle part...

It's fair to say that this clearly experimental "Nutcracker" has been a consistent success with audiences.

A. Degen, I. Stupnikov

In the photo: “The Nutcracker” staged by Shemyakin at the Mariinsky Theater

A further step in Tchaikovsky’s work along the path of symphonizing ballet and saturating dance with specific figurative and characteristic content was “The Nutcracker” based on the fairy tale story by E.T.A. Hoffmann in a free retelling by A. Dumas. The initiative to create this ballet, like The Sleeping Beauty, belonged to Vsevolozhsky, based on whose outline a detailed scenario plan Petipa. Although Hoffmann's plot in itself attracted the composer, much in the way it was interpreted by the authors of the ballet script caused him a strong protest.

Vsevolozhsky and Petipa saw in the fairy tale of the German romantic writer primarily material for a spectacular and enticing spectacle. The action of the two-act ballet is limited to its first half; The second part is a colorful divertissement in the “Confitiirenburg” invented by Vsevolozhsky - “City of Sweets”, where the authors of the libretto lead their heroes - the girl Clara and the Nutcracker, freed from the spell. What confused Tchaikovsky most of all was this “confectionery divertissement.” “...I feel a complete inability to reproduce Confitiirenburg musically,” he admitted shortly after starting work on the ballet. But gradually he managed to find his own solution, largely independent of the Vsevolozhsky-Petipa script, and in some ways even contradicting it. “No stage production,” Asafiev wrote, “has so far been able to surpass the fascination and entertainment of the fabulous symphonic orchestral and colorful impact scores" Extraordinary in its richness of colors and timbre ingenuity, the combination of sharp characterization with a rich fullness of sound and genuine symphony, the score of “The Nutcracker” undoubtedly far exceeds the intentions of the librettists and ballet directors.

Despite the fact that the main actors"The Nutcracker" is written by children; this ballet cannot be classified as a children's ballet musical literature. As Asafiev correctly noted, this musical and choreographic narrative is not so much about childhood, but about that turning point in life, “when the hopes of an as yet unknown youth are already exciting, and childhood skills and childhood fears have not yet gone away... When dreams draw feelings and thoughts forward, into the unconscious - into a life that is only anticipated.” The world of carefree childhood with its games, fun, quarrels over toys is shown in the scenes of lighting the Christmas tree, distributing gifts, dancing and round dances from the first scene of the first act. In the second act, a new magical world, full of mysterious charm, and childhood is already left behind. The connecting role is played by a symphonic picture of creepy fantastic dreams Clara, the war of mice and toys, where it takes place mental break, about which Asafiev writes. The immediate transformation of the Nutcracker reflects the widespread fairy tale motif: goodness and love triumph over evil magic (A well-known parallel to the story of the Nutcracker is, for example, the tale of the Frog Princess. A similar motif is reflected in “Sleeping Beauty.”).

The composer finds bright means of expression to describe two worlds juxtaposed in “The Nutcracker”: the world of cozy burgher life and the mysteriously attractive, enchanting or frightening and darkly fascinating fantasy world. The opening scenes of a merry Christmas party in the house of President Zilberghaus stand in stark contrast to everything that follows. Here, simple and transparent orchestral colors prevail, familiar everyday dance forms (children's gallop, polka, waltz), sometimes with a touch of ironically colored stylization (the appearance of parents in dandy outfits from the times of the Directory to the sounds of a ponderous minuet, a naive and simple-minded Grosfater). An element of the mysterious, the miraculous invades this peaceful setting in the guise of Councilor Drosselmeyer with his amazing dolls. Musically, it is characterized by sharp, bizarre outlines of the melodic pattern, unusual combinations of orchestral timbres (for example, a viola and two trombones), in which one can hear something funny, absurd and at the same time witchcraft. It is no coincidence that the theme accompanying Drosselmeyer's exit then appears in Clara's nightmares.

With the onset of night, the mysterious world of wonders comes to life and everything around appears in an unusual, disturbing light. The quiet, gentle lullaby of Clara rocking the Nutcracker to sleep, performed twice before, now sounds new thanks to a full orchestral texture with harp arpeggias enveloping the simple, artless melody in soft light. The color of the music becomes increasingly lighter and shimmering, evoking a feeling of transparent darkness illuminated by rays of moonlight (soaring flute passages, harp arpeggias). But the muffled, secret sound heard first in the thick low register (bass clarinet, tuba), then in the high wooden ones (flute, oboe, clarinet) “knock of fate” portends evil. The evil spirits of the night come to life, mice and rats crawl out of their crevices (“rustling” passages of bassoon and string basses), and at this time the tree suddenly begins to grow, reaching enormous heights. In the music, this moment is conveyed by three powerful waves of build-up, built on the sequential development of a motif closely reminiscent of the theme of love from “The Queen of Spades,” as well as the related theme of the violin solo from the intermission between two scenes of the second act of “Sleeping Beauty.”

The significance of this episode is not limited to the illustrative accompaniment of the stage image; the music, filled with passionate excitement, conveys the spiritual growth of the young heroine, who for the first time experiences the emergence of new, feelings and desires that she herself does not yet fully understand. A growing tree is only a symbol, an external allegorical expression of a deeper mental process.

This ends the first half of the symphonic picture; its second section depicts the war of mice and toys. Mouse rustles and squeaks are intertwined here with the battle cries of the puppet army (oboe fanfare theme), the beat of small drums, and “offensive” ostinato rhythms. The rampant nightly evil spirits suddenly stop when Clara throws her slipper at the mouse king and thereby saves the Nutcracker, who then turns into a handsome prince. This scene segues directly into next picture - magical forest, where Clara and the prince are transported, they are greeted by dwarves with lit torches. The trials are left behind, the solemn, smoothly unfolding theme sounds with ever-increasing power as a hymn to perseverance and purity of feeling. The first act ends with the rhythmically unique “Waltz of Snowflakes”, with phrases grouped into two quarters, running “across” the time signature. This is how the wanderings of Clara and the Nutcracker, who she saved, begin: the crystal ringing of the celesta in a light major coda sounds like a harbinger of miracles and joys awaiting the heroes.

The introduction to this action paints a picture of a full-flowing river with rising waves along which a boat glides, bringing Clara and the prince to the fabulous Confiturenburg: a light melody in the spirit of a barcarolle, based on the sounds of a half-tone series, is intertwined with the figuration of harps, creating the illusion of the smooth swaying of a floating boat.

After the well-received Nutcracker's story about the night's events, there is a large divertissement consisting of a suite of characteristic national dances: brilliant temperamental Spanish; languid Arabic with a lazily swaying fifth in the bass and the muted sound of muted strings; witty instrumental humorous Chinese (wide passages of flute with measured accompaniment of two bassoons, reminiscent of the automatic shaking of the heads of porcelain dolls); a dashing Russian trepak, followed by an elegant dance of shepherdesses with two solo flutes, a comically rollicking dance of French polychinelles, and, finally, the lush and poetically fascinating “Waltz of the Flowers” that completes the entire cycle.

This atmosphere of bright festive celebration is unexpectedly intruded by notes of passionate excitement and almost drama in the dance duet that immediately follows the waltz. This is the culminating moment in the development of the line of two young heroes (According to Petipa's plan, the duet was intended for the Sugar Plum Fairy - a character artificially introduced in connection with Confiturenburg's plan - and Prince Orshad. In modern ballet theater it is performed by Clara and the Nutcracker, which is much more dramatically logical and more in keeping with the character of the music.), before whom a new big world opens up human life, both alluring and disturbing. “...Here the idea develops about the struggle for life that accompanies the dreams and hopes of youth” - this is how Asafiev defines the meaning of this ballet Adagio. The duet is complemented by two solo variations - an energetic, rapid male one in the rhythm of a tarantella and a graceful female one. Particular attention is drawn to the second variation, where the external coldness of color (solo celesta, supported by a light accompaniment of strings and wood) is combined with soft and gentle elegance. The ballet ends with another waltz and apotheosis, in which the serenely light and affectionate theme of the introduction to the second act again sounds.

The Nutcracker first saw the light of day on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater on December 6, 1892, together with Iolanta. The contradiction between what was presented to the public on stage and the high symphonic content of Tchaikovsky's music had an adverse effect on the fate of the work. “The success was not unconditional,” the composer wrote shortly after the premiere. “Apparently, I really liked the opera, but rather not the ballet.” And in fact, despite its luxury, it turned out to be rather boring.” Behind the motley alternation of different characters and episodes, it was difficult to grasp the line of through action, and besides, much, especially in the second act, was not impeccable from the point of view of good taste.

“After a number of successful productions, such as The Queen of Spades and The Sleeping Beauty,” recalled the future director of the imperial theaters V. A. Telyakovsky, “an unimaginable tasteless production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker appeared, in last picture of which some ballet dancers were dressed in rich brioche from Filippov’s bakery.” Critical reviews of both the performance and Tchaikovsky's music were almost unanimously negative. Only in the light further development choreographic art at the beginning of the 20th century innovative value“The Nutcracker” could be truly appreciated, and starting from the 20s, this ballet took a strong place in the repertoire of Russian musical theaters.