That's Nuts

Photo credit: Liza Voll with the Boston Ballet

The Nutcracker ballet is a tradition loved by many. Both dancers and the audience love it. Here is an excellent synopsis by the Boston Ballet if you would like to read the story. But how did this magical story of a little girl and her new doll come to be performed on so many stages every year? Well, here is a brief history.

In 1816, E.T.A. Hoffman wrote the book The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It is very long and quite tragic. In 1845, Alexandre Dumas re-wrote the story with a lighter take. Dumas also added the now classic character of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In 1891, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was commissioned by the Imperial Mariinsky Theater to compose music for the ballet based on Dumas’ version of the story. 

In 1892, the ballet premiered, but while people liked the music, the ballet wasn’t a hit. While the ballet was performed after that, it didn’t really take off until 1954, when George Balanchine re-did the ballet for the New York City Ballet. A large part of the reason Balanchine choreographed NYCB’s Nutcracker was how much he liked Tchaikovsky's music when he was working on the Walt Disney movie Fantasia. 

To this day, the most popular production of The Nutcracker is New York City Ballet’s. Remarkably, this magical ballet would not be here as we know it today without Fantasia.

While the Nutcracker has changed quite a lot from that original performance in 1892, it is still a classic held together by the music, dancing, and artistry.