I walk by a home with two life-size nutcrackers standing guard at the door. My iPhone camera could only get a photo of one of them. It is not the first home where I have seen nutcrackers as outdoor decorations. I get the feeling that even though the nutcracker décor is inanimate, it is still a sentry protecting the home. You feel safe with one or more of these posted outside your front door. In addition, I have seen performances of “The Nutcracker” ballet by Tchaikovsky more than once during the Christmas holidays. It is delightful entertainment for all ages and is easy to root for the hero — the Nutcracker/Prince. To learn more about all kinds of nutcrackers, read on.
A nutcracker is a tool designed to open nuts by cracking their shells. There are many designs, including levers, screws and ratchets. The lever version is also used for cracking lobster and crab shells.
A decorative version portrays a person whose mouth forms the jaws of the nutcracker.
Functions
Nuts were historically opened using a hammer and anvil, often made of stone. Some nuts such as walnuts can also be opened by hand, by holding the nut in the palm of the hand and applying pressure with the other palm or thumb or using another nut.
Manufacturers produce modern functional nutcrackers usually somewhat resembling pliers, but with the pivot point at the end beyond the nut, rather than in the middle. Hinged lever nutcrackers, often called a "pair of nutcrackers," may date back to Ancient Greece. By the 14th century in Europe, nutcrackers were documented in England — including in the “Canterbury Tales” — and in France. The lever design may derive from blacksmiths' pincers. Materials included metals such as silver, cast-iron and bronze, along with wood including boxwood — especially those from France and Italy. More rarely, porcelain was used. Many of the wooden carved nutcrackers were in the form of people and animals.
During the Victorian era, fruit and nuts were presented at dinner and ornate and often silver-plated nutcrackers were produced to accompany them on the dinner table. Nuts have long been a popular choice for desserts, particularly throughout Europe. The nutcrackers were placed on dining tables to serve as a fun and entertaining center of conversation while diners awaited their final course. At one time, nutcrackers were actually made of metals such as brass, and it was not until the 1800s in Germany that the popularity of wooden ones began to spread.
The late 19th century saw two shifts in nutcracker production: the rise in figurative and decorative designs, particularly from the Alps where they were sold as souvenirs, and a switch to industrial manufacture, including availability in mail-order catalogs, rather than artisan production. After the 1960s, the availability of pre-shelled nuts led to a decline in ownership of nutcrackers and a fall in the tradition of nuts being put in children's Christmas stockings.
Alternative designs
In the 17th century, screw nutcrackers were introduced that applied more gradual pressure to the shell, some like a vise. The spring-jointed nutcracker was patented by Henry Quackenbush in 1913. A ratchet design — similar to a car jack — that gradually increases pressure on the shell to avoid damaging the kernel inside is used by the Crackerjack, patented in 1947 by Cuthbert Leslie Rimes of Morley, Leeds and exhibited at the Festival of Britain. Unshelled nuts are still popular in China, where a key device is inserted into the crack in walnuts, pecans and macadamias and twisted to open the shell.
Nutcrackers in the form of wood carvings of a soldier, knight, king or other profession have existed since at least the 15th century. Figurative nutcrackers are a good luck symbol in Germany, and a folktale recounts that a puppet-maker won a nutcracking challenge by creating a doll with a mouth for a lever to crack the nuts. These nutcrackers portray a person with a large mouth which the operator opens by lifting a lever in the back of the figurine. Originally, one could insert a nut in the big-toothed mouth, press down and thereby crack the nut. Modern nutcrackers in this style serve mostly for decoration, mainly at Christmas time, a season of which they have long been a traditional symbol. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet “The Nutcracker,” based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffman, derives its name from this festive holiday decoration.
The carving of nutcrackers — as well as of religious figures and of cribs — developed as a cottage industry in forested rural areas of Germany. The most famous nutcracker carvings come from Sonneberg in Thuringia — also a center of dollmaking — and as part of the industry of wooden toymaking in the Ore Mountains. Wood carving usually provided the only income for the people living there. Today, the travel industry supplements their income by bringing visitors to the remote areas. Carvings by famous names like Junghanel, Klaus Mertens, Karl, Olaf Kolbe, Petersen, Christian Ulbricht and especially the Steinbach nutcrackers have become collectors' items.
Decorative nutcrackers became popular in the United States after World War II, following the first U.S. production of “The Nutcracker” ballet in 1940 and the exposure of U.S. soldiers to the dolls during the war. In the United States, few of the decorative nutcrackers are now functional, though expensive working designs are still available. Many of the woodworkers in Germany were in Erzgebirge — in the Soviet zone after the end of the war — and they mass-produced poorly made designs for the U.S. market. With the increase in pre-shelled nuts, the need for functionality was also lessened. After the 1980s, Chinese and Taiwanese imports that copied the traditional German designs took over. The recreated "Bavarian village" of Leavenworth, Washington, features a nutcracker museum. Many other materials also serve to make decorated nutcrackers, such as porcelain, silver and brass; the museum displays samples. The United States Postal Service issued four stamps in October 2008 with custom-made nutcrackers made by Richmond, Virginia artist Glenn Crider.
History
Nutcracker dolls originate from late 17th century Germany, particularly the Ore Mountains region. One origin story attributes the creation of the first nutcracker doll to a craftsman from Seiffen. They were often given as gifts, and at some point they became associated with the Christmas season. They grew in popularity around the 19th century and spread to nearby European countries. As the demand grew, nutcracker doll production also began on a mass scale in factories. Friedrich Wilhelm Füchtner (1844–1923) — commonly known in Germany as "father of the nutcracker" — began the first mass production of the design using a lathe at his workshop in Seiffen in Saxony, Germany during 1872.
Decorative nutcracker dolls began being popularized outside of Europe after World War II, when numerous American soldiers stationed in Germany came home to the United States with German nutcrackers as souvenirs. Further popularization came from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's “The Nutcracker,” a ballet adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffman's story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which featured a toy soldier nutcracker. The ballet, introduced to America during the mid-20th century, became a favorite holiday tradition across the United States and helped make nutcracker dolls a Christmas decoration and a seasonal icon across Western culture.
Nutcracking by animals
Many animals shell nuts to eat them, including using tools. The Capuchin monkey is a fine example. Parrots use their beaks as natural nutcrackers, in much the same way smaller birds crack seeds. In this case, the pivot point stands opposite the nut, at the jaw or the beak.
“The Nutcracker” ballet
“The Nutcracker” is an 1892 two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Op. 71).
Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete “Nutcracker” has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40% of their annual ticket revenues from performances of “The Nutcracker.” The ballet's score has been used in several film adaptations of Hoffmann's story.
Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad “The Voyevoda.”
Composition
After the success of “The Sleeping Beauty” in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would be “Iolanta.” For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on “The Sleeping Beauty.” The material Petipa chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffman's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by Alexandre Dumas called "The Story of a Nutcracker." The plot of Hoffmann's story and Dumas' adaptation was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann's tale contains a long flashback story within its main plot titled "The Tale of the Hard Nut," which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. This had to be excised for the ballet.
Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars. The completion of the work was interrupted for a short time when Tchaikovsky visited the United States for 25 days to conduct concerts for the opening of Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky composed parts of “The Nutcracker” in Rouen, France.
Saint Petersburg, Russia premiere
The first performance of the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, “Iolanta,” on December 18, 1892, at the Imperial Marjinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Although the libretto was by Marius Petipa, who exactly choreographed the first production has been debated. Petipa began work on the choreography in August 1892; however, illness removed him from its completion and his assistant of seven years, Lev Ivanov, was brought in. Although Ivanov is often credited as the choreographer, some contemporary accounts credit Petipa. The performance was conducted by Italian composer Riccardo Drigo, with Antoinetta Dell’Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavl Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince and Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer. Unlike in many later productions, the children's roles were performed by real children — students of the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg, with Belinskaya as Clara and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz — rather than adults.
The first performance of “The Nutcracker” was not deemed a success. The reaction to the dancers themselves was ambivalent. While some critics praised Dell'Era on her pointework as the Sugar Plum Fairy — she allegedly received five curtain-calls — one critic called her "corpulent" and "podgy." Olga Preobrajenskaya as the Columbine doll was panned by one critic as "completely insipid" and praised as "charming" by another.
Alexandre Benois described the choreography of the battle scene as confusing: "One cannot understand anything. Disorderly pushing about from corner to corner and running backwards and forwards — quite amateurish."
The libretto was criticized as "lopsided" and for not being faithful to the Hoffmann tale. Much of the criticism focused on the featuring of children so prominently in the ballet, and many bemoaned the fact that the ballerina did not dance until the grand pas de deux near the end of the second act — which did not occur until nearly midnight during the program. Some found the transition between the mundane world of the first scene and the fantasy world of the second act too abrupt. Reception was better for Tchaikovsky's score. Some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration" and "from beginning to end — beautiful, melodious, original and characteristic". But this also was not unanimous, as some critics found the party scene "ponderous" and the grand pas de deux "insipid."
Subsequent productions
In 1919, choreographer Alexander Gorsky staged a production which eliminated the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier and gave their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, who were played by adults instead of children. This was the first production to do so. An abridged version of the ballet was first performed outside Russia in Budapest at the Royal Opera House in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada. In 1934, choreographer Vasili Vainonen staged a version of the work that addressed many of the criticisms of the original 1892 production by casting adult dancers in the roles of Clara and the Prince, as Gorsky had. The Vainonen version influenced several later productions.
The first complete performance outside Russia took place in England in 1934, staged by Nicholas Sergeyev after Petipa's original choreography. Annual performances of the ballet have been staged there since 1952. Another abridged version of the ballet, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was staged in New York City in 1940, Alexandra Fedorova — again, after Petipa's version. The ballet's first complete United States performance was on December 24, 1944, by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director, William Christensen, and starring Gisella Caccialanza as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Jocelyn Vollmar as the Snow Queen. After the enormous success of this production, San Francisco Ballet has presented “Nutcracker” every Christmas Eve and throughout the winter season, debuting new productions in 1944, 1954, 1967 and 2004. The original Christensen version continues in Salt Lake City, where Christensen relocated in 1948. It has been performed every year since 1963 by the Christensen-founded Ballet West.
The New York City Ballet gave its first annual performance of George Balanchine's reworked staging of “The Nutcracker” in 1954. The performance of Maria Tallchief in the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy helped elevate the work from obscurity into an annual Christmas classic, and the industry's most reliable box-office draw. Critic Walter Terry remarked "Maria Tallchief, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, is herself a creature of magic, dancing the seemingly impossible with effortless beauty of movement, electrifying us with her brilliance, enchanting us with her radiance of being. Does she have any equals anywhere, inside or outside of fairyland? While watching her in “the Nutcracker,” one is tempted to doubt it." Beginning in the 1960s, the tradition of performing the complete ballet at Christmas eventually spread to the rest of the United States.
Since Gorsky, Vainonen and Balanchine's productions, many other choreographers have made their own versions. Some institute the changes made by Gorsky and Vainonen while others, like Balanchine, utilize the original libretto. Some notable productions include Rudolf Nureyev’s 1963 production for the Royal Ballet, Yury Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, Kent Stowell for Pacific Northwest Ballet starting in 1983 and Peter Wright for the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In recent years, revisionist productions, including those by Mark Morris, Matthew Bourne and Mikhail Chemiakin have appeared; these depart radically from both the original 1892 libretto and Vainonen's revival, while Maurice Bejart's version completely discards the original plot and characters. In addition to annual live stagings of the work, many productions have also been televised or released on home video.
Plot
Act I, Scene 1 – The Stahlbaum home
The ballet is set on Christmas Eve, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor to decorate the beautiful Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once the tree is finished, the children are sent for. They stand in awe of the tree sparkling with candles and decorations.
The party begins. A march is played. Presents are given out to the children. Suddenly, as the owl-topped grandmother clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Drosselmeyer, a local councilman, magician and Clara's godfather. He is also a talented toymaker who has brought with him gifts for the children, including four lifelike dolls who dance to the delight of all. He then has them put away for safekeeping.
Clara and Fritz are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a little man. The other children ignore it, but Clara immediately takes a liking to it. Fritz, however, breaks it, and Clara is heartbroken.
During the night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Clara returns to the parlor to check on her beloved nutcracker. As she reaches the little bed, the clock strikes midnight and she looks up to see Drosselmeyer perched atop it. Suddenly, mice begin to fill the room and the Christmas tree begins to grow to dizzying heights. The nutcracker also grows to life size. Clara finds herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and the mice, led by their king. The mice begin to eat the gingerbread soldiers.
The nutcracker appears to lead the soldiers, who are joined by tin soldiers and by dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Clara throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him.
Act I, Scene 2 – A Pine Forest
The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome prince. He leads Clara through the moonlit night to a pine forest in which the snowflakes dance around them, beckoning them on to his kingdom as the first act ends.
Act II, Scene 1 – The Land of Sweets
Clara and the Prince travel to the beautiful Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. He recounts for her how he had been saved from the Mouse King by Clara and transformed back into himself. In honor of the young heroine, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China and candy canes from Russia; all dance for their amusement. Danish shepherdesses perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger has her children — the Polichinelles — emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz. To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance.
A final waltz is performed by all the sweets, after which the Sugar Plum Fairy ushers Clara and the Prince down from their throne. He bows to her; she kisses Clara goodbye and leads them to a reindeer-drawn sleigh. It takes off as they wave goodbye to all the subjects who wave back.
In the original libretto, the ballet's apotheosis "represents a large beehive with flying bees, closely guarding their riches." Just like “Swan Lake,” there have been various alternative endings created in productions subsequent to the original.
Musical sources and influences
The Nutcracker is one of the composer's most popular compositions. The music belongs to the Romantic period and contains some of his most memorable melodies, several of which are frequently used in television and film. They are often heard in TV commercials shown during the Christmas season. The "Trepak" or "Russian dance" is one of the most recognizable pieces in the ballet, along with the "Waltz of the Flowers" and "March" — as well as the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." The composer's reverence for Rococo and late 18th-century music such as by Mozart and Haydn can be detected in passages such as the Overture, the “Entrée des parents” and Grossvater Tanz” in Act I.
Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on a one-octave scale in sequence. Tchaikovsky asked if it mattered whether the notes were in ascending or descending order and was assured it did not. This resulted in the Adagio from the grand pas de deux, which nearly always immediately follows the "Waltz of the Flowers." A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister Alexandra (January 9, 1842 — April 9, 1891) had died shortly before he began composition of the ballet and that his sister's death influenced him to compose a melancholy, descending scale melody for the adagio of the grand pas de deux. However, it is more naturally perceived as a dreams-come-true theme because of another celebrated scale use, the ascending one in the Bacarolle from “The Seasons.”
One novelty in Tchaikovsky's original score was the use of the celesta, a new instrument Tchaikovsky had discovered in Paris. He wanted it genuinely for the character of the Sugar Plum Fairy to characterize her because of its "heavenly sweet sound." It appears not only in her "Dance" but also in other passages in Act II. Apparently, he had first experimented with another similar instrument to the celeste, the dulcitone, but found it too soft for use within the orchestra. Tchaikovsky also uses toy instruments during the Christmas party scene. He was proud of the celesta's effect and wanted its music performed quickly for the public, before he could be "scooped."
The original ballet is only about 85 minutes long if performed without applause or an intermission, and therefore much shorter than either “Swan Lake” or “The Sleeping Beauty,” but some modern staged performances have omitted or re-ordered some of the music or inserted selections from elsewhere, thus adding to the confusion over the suites. In most of the very famous versions of the ballet, the order of the dances has been slightly re-arranged, and/or the music has been altered. For instance, the 1954 George Balanchine New York City Ballet version adds to Tchaikovsky's score an entr’acte that the composer wrote for Act II of “The Sleeping Beauty” but which is now seldom played in productions of that ballet. It is used as a transition between the departure of the guests and the battle with the mice. Nearly all of the CD and LP recordings of the complete ballet present Tchaikovsky's score exactly as he originally conceived it.
Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with “The Nutcracker” than with “The Sleeping Beauty.” In the film “Fantasia,” commentator Deems Taylor observes that he "really detested" the score. Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from Vsevolozhsky but did not particularly want to write the ballet, though he did write to a friend while composing it, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task."
Contemporary arrangements
In 1952, the Les Brown big band recorded a version of the “Nutcracker Suite,” arranged by Frank Comstock for Coral Records. Brown rerecorded the arrangement in stereo for his 1958 Capitol Records album “Concert Modern.”
In 1960, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn composed jazz interpretations of pieces from Tchaikovsky's score, recorded and released on LP as “The Nutcracker Sute.” In 1999, this suite was supplemented with additional arrangements from the score by David Berger for “The Harlem Nutcracker,” a production of the ballet by choreographer Donald Byrd set during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's first album, “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” includes an instrumental piece titled "A Mad Russian's Christmas," which is a rock version of music from “The Nutcracker.”
In 2014, Pentatonix released an a cappella arrangement of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on the holiday album “That’s Christmas to Me” and received a Grammy Award on February 16, 2016 for best arrangement.
Films
The 1940 DIsney animated film “Fantasia” features a segment using “the Nutcracker Suite.” This version was also included both as part of the 3-LP soundtrack album of “Fantasia” (since released as a 2-CD set), and as a single LP, with “Dance of the Hours,” another “Fantasia” segment, on the reverse side.
In 1988, Care Bears Nutcracker Suite was produced by the Canadian animation studio Nelvana and featured the Care Bears characters.
In 2001, Babie appeared in her first film, “Barbie in the Nutcracker.” It used excerpts by Tchaikovsky, which were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. Though it heavily altered the story, it still made use of ballet sequences which had been rotoscoped using real ballet dancers.
In 2007, “Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale” also used “The Nutcracker” excerpts, which were performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.
Television
A 1954 Christmas episode of General Electric Theater featured Fred Waring and his choral group, the Pennsylvanians, singing excerpts from “The Nutcracker” with specially written lyrics. While the music was being sung, the audience saw ballet dancers performing. The episode was hosted by Ronald Reagan.
In Batman: The Animated Series episode "Christmas with the Joker," The Joker plays “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” and later “The Russian Dance” on a record player to distract Batman and Robin.
Princess Tutu, a 2002 anime series that uses elements from many ballets as both music and as part of the storyline, uses the music from “The Nutcracker” in many places throughout its run, including using an arranged version of the overture as the theme for the main character. Both the first and last episodes feature “The Nutcracker” as their theme, and one of the main characters is named Drosselmeyer.
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