The Endurance of "The Nutcracker"
How Tchaikovsky's holiday classic went from being panned by critics to becoming the world's most popular ballet.
This essay was originally published on December 11th, 2023. To gain access to the full publication archives, along with exclusive, patron-only essays, become a paid subscriber today:
In the midnight gloom of a winter wood, stately pine trees tower overhead. The snowfall begins gradually—a few iridescent flakes make their descent, followed by a few dozen, followed by hundreds, until the ground is blanketed in snow.
If you keep watching, something miraculous happens.
The snow stirs, and suddenly, a snowflake transforms into a dancer. Clothed in shimmering white tulle and crowned in a diamond tiara, the dancer leaps gracefully amongst the trees. Another materializes, and as she twirls through the snow, she is lighter than the wind that sings through the sea of pines. The wintry landscape soon teems with dancers, and the music accompanying their synchronized movements crescendos in a whirling frenzy. The blizzard has arrived.
“Valse de floçons de neige,” or “Waltz of the Snowflakes,” has always been my favorite dance from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. As a child, I often dreamed of discovering a portal into another world, like the one Clara (or Klara) discovers over the course of the iconic ballet. After defeating the Mouse King towards the end of Act One, the Nutcracker whom Clara received as a Christmas present reveals himself to be a young prince. The prince whisks Clara away through an enchanted forest of pines en route to his kingdom.
This time of year, theaters all over the United States will be mounting their perennial productions of The Nutcracker. For many of us, it was our first, if only, exposure to ballet. For those who haven’t seen it either on screen or in person, they would no doubt recognize the music of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” which today is featured in countless Christmas movies and seasonal commercials.
You may be surprised, given its extraordinary popularity, that The Nutcracker was panned by critics when it first premiered in St. Petersburg in 1892. While critics generally complimented Tchaikovsky’s score, others took issue with Marius Petipa’s choreography, including the decision to incorporate so many children in the cast. Others disliked how the ballet presented a much sweeter take on its source material—E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story, “Nutracker and Mouse King.” In this version by the German Romantic, the protagonist’s name is Marie, not Clara, and the battle between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King possesses a darker, nightmarish quality. The French writer Alexandre Dumas wrote a lighter version of Hoffmann’s original tale, and that was the version Ivan Vsevolozhsky (director of the Russian Empire’s Imperial Theatres) preferred when he approached Tchaikovsky about producing The Nutcracker we know today.
The history of ballet is, of course, less wholesome than the whimsical—and frankly, posh—associations we have of the art form today. The world in which Tchaikovsky composed The Nutcracker is quite different from our own.
Nowadays, ballet is an activity largely reserved for the upper-middle and upper classes. Between paying for classes, ballet shoes, and costumes, not to mention the travel and fees associated with participating on a competitive team, ballet is not cheap. But during the 19th century, being a ballet dancer was a decidedly working-class job, one often deeply exploitative.
It was a double-edged sword. On one hand, young, poor girls of talent could gain employment, and in some instances, become celebrities, such as Eugénie Fiocre and Fanny Elssler. But for many dancers, particularly at the infamous Paris Opera Ballet, the money they were able to accumulate came from wealthy male patrons known as abonnés. Ballet dancers were, essentially, prostitutes of a status above those who resided in brothels; it was rumored that the dancers given principal parts were those willing to spend the most time backstage with the patrons. If you ever wondered why Edgar Degas’s paintings of ballet dancers were so controversial in his day (when to our eyes, the subject matter is completely innocent), that is why. To the bourgeoisie viewing Degas’s The Dance Class or The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage, these were images of sex workers.
By the mid-20th century, ballet had largely lost this association, and ballet companies spread across Europe and North America. An abridged version of The Nutcracker was first performed in the United States in 1940 in New York City, followed by the full version on Christmas Eve, 1944 at the San Francisco Ballet. The Nutcracker was an enormous hit in the States, and it became a beloved annual tradition. Ballet companies big and small, from the New York City Ballet to thousands of small regional theaters, mount their productions every December.
Why is The Nutcracker so popular? I am not a musician and therefore can’t write with eloquence about the brilliance of Tchaikovsky’s score; I don’t know much about classical music. But I feel that from a narrative standpoint, The Nutcracker perfectly taps into literary tropes beloved by children, earning the story a place in their hearts as they grow older. Long before the likes of Toy Story, The Nutcracker asked the question, “What happens when our toys come to life?” As a child, I loved to imagine that my dolls had their own fabulous adventures when I wasn’t around, and I suspect many other children did, too.
But The Nutcracker is also a wonderful example of a portal fantasy—a type of fantastical narrative that involves journeying to another realm. (Think The Wizard of Oz or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.) At the beginning of Act II, Clara journeys to the Land of Sweets, ruled over by the Sugar Plum Fairy and a court of candy come to life. When I was little, I would often dream of finding a portal to another land—what I would have given to be whisked away with Clara! And while I did spend an inordinate amount of time making potions from my mom’s flowers or searching for fairies at the bottom of the garden, I’m sure I’m wasn’t alone in having that wish.
The fact that The Nutcracker takes place on Christmas Eve, a night that many children already associate with enchantment, allows the story to embody the magical aspects of the holiday season. This unique blend of fantasy and nostalgia gives it staying power, even in a time when the vast majority of us have little exposure to ballet or classical music. For many Decembers to come, audiences all over the country will watch with rapt attention as a little girl falls asleep on Christmas Eve, and under cover of darkness, her toys come alive.
When my daughters were young part of our Christmas tradition was to see The Nutcracker.
The Nutcracker was one of my earliest obsessions as a kid exploring classical music. Along with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, it was one of the works to show me how powerful storytelling through music could be.
I wish I could have been in the audience for the ballet’s premiere, if only to be one of the first to hear the swirling sounds of the celesta — the bell-toned keyboard instrument Tchaikovsky used to magical effect in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He came across the newly invented instrument in Paris, and immediately asked his publisher to buy him one for use in Moscow. But Tchaikovsky also begged him not to let any other Russian composer know the instrument was available. He wanted to be the first in town to use it!
The New York Times recently ran a great piece on the instrument’s history. Here’s a gift link if you're interested:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/03/arts/music/celesta-nutcracker-holiday-music.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hU4.ZsU4.rUlUZbvywwjq&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare