As the winter holidays approach, so does a seasonal classic. “The Nutcracker,” the fantasy ballet set to an adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original tale and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s score, seems to be as popular today with audiences of all ages as it was when it was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1892. U. of I. professor Donna Buchanan, whose specialization is Russian and Balkan music, teaches courses focusing on Russian art music, including “The Nutcracker.” She discusses the timeless appeal of the ballet and its music with News Bureau arts writer Melissa Mitchell.
As “The Nutcracker” opens, a family is gathering for a Christmas Eve celebration – which explains why it is traditionally performed at this time of year. But how do you account for its widespread and enduring popularity?
This probably has to do with the whimsical, fantastical allure of the plot, which appeals to imaginations young and old; the lyrical, singable quality of melodies; the coloristic, pictorial orchestrational effects; and the swirling, vivid, almost kaleidoscopic dance scenes. It’s a bit like watching an early Disney animated film, like “Snow White,” unfold on the stage with real live characters. For youngsters, the effect can be spellbinding. Orchestras and dance companies across the U.S. have made the work a seasonal standard; the fact that children play the main roles in the story and that Tchaikovsky wrote the music with the world of the child in mind is also important. After all, every 5-year-old ballerina wants to waltz like a flower!
Is “The Nutcracker” performed much in Russia today?
One of our doctoral candidates in Russian history and music, Rebecca Mitchell, told me that she recently attended a production of the work at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, where it was originally premiered and is still part of the standard repertory, and that she has heard musical excerpts everywhere – on Russian television and even in the grocery store. It also remains a staple of the Moscow Ballet company, which has made the “Great Russian Nutcracker,” with elaborate new set designs, costuming, puppets, and choreography, the centerpiece of its repertory for the international stage since 1993. The plot is slightly modified but the score is Tchaikovsky’s. The company has been touring the U.S. and Canada throughout the fall 2008 season with performances of “Nutcracker” and Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty.”
Is it true that the music from the ballet was actually performed more often than the ballet itself for many years?
It is true that critics grumbled about the ballet’s lack of drama and overly lavish production aesthetics following its premiere, while praising the music, but I’m not sure this is the whole story. “The Nutcracker” resulted from a collaboration between Marius Petipa, the renowned French dance master of the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet, and Tchaikovsky. Petipa provided the composer with a descriptive program for the ballet that indicated how he envisioned the character and length of each dance. Tchaikovsky then wrote much of the music in just two weeks. Not satisfied with the score, he continued to fiddle with it after its completion. He fashioned an orchestral suite from eight dance numbers and it was with this suite that the work was premiered in St. Petersburg in March 1892. The ballet itself was launched at the Mariinsky Theater in December. It was the orchestral suite that introduced Americans to the composition when it debuted in the United States, also in 1892, and so it may have first gained more popularity there as an instrumental work.
The score includes some of Tchaikovsky’s most recognizable music, including “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” which introduced the distinctive sounds of the celesta to generations. Is this music considered to be among the composer’s best work?
Beauty and greatness are usually in the eye and ear of the beholder. “The Nutcracker” is featured in practically every collegiate music appreciation textbook, but the leading texts for music majors frequently only mention it in passing, choosing to treat Tchaikovsky’s operas “The Queen of Spades” and “Eugene Onegin,” his symphonies 4-6, his “Romeo and Juliet” overture, his first piano concerto, or the “Serenade for Strings” instead. Tchaikovsky himself reportedly expressed anxiety following the score’s completion that it was not as successful as “Sleeping Beauty,” but his melancholic personality often hindered a more rational self-assessment of his works. What I like about “The Nutcracker” is how it illustrates an important characteristic of Tchaikovsky’s compositional persona – the tension between his western European conservatory training and mastery of conventional forms with his profoundly Russian sensibilities and knowledge of local folklore. The addition of the celesta was an expert touch – one that he feared Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov would discover and take advantage of before the ballet’s debut.
