Nutcracker Tour

The Nutcracker, a two-act ballet by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is perhaps the composer's best-loved work. In Western countries, The Nutcracker has become perhaps the most popular of all ballets, performed primarily during the Christmas season. In the United States, especially since the 1960's, it has transcended its origins as a mere ballet or piece of classical music, becoming a part of American tradition almost as much as the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Tchaikovsky made a selection of eight of the numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 premiere, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the St. Petersburg branch of the Musical Society. The suite became instantly popular (according to Men of Music "every number had to be repeated"), but the complete ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City.

Among other things, the score of The Nutcracker 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 (premiered 1891). Although well-known in The Nutcracker as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II, it is employed elsewhere in the same act.

Among other things, the score of The Nutcracker 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. Get your tickets of The Nutcracker from Sold Out Ticket Market at nominal rates.

Nutcracker Tour will be live from Tue, Nov 23, 2010 to Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at Palace Theatre Manchester,Manchester,United Kingdom.

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Nutcracker videos

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Nutcracker Picture Gallery

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Nutcracker History

Tchaikovsky himself was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with The Sleeping Beauty, his previous ballet. (In the film Fantasia, commentator Deems Taylor observes, very accurately, that he "really detested" the score.) Though he accepted the commission from Ivan Vsevolozhsky, he did not particularly want to write it (though he did write to a friend while composing the ballet: "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.")

While composing the music for the ballet, Tchaikovsky is said to have argued with a friend who wagered that the composer could not write a melody based on the notes of the scale in an octave 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 Grand adagio from the Grand pas de deux of the second act, which traditionally is danced just after the Waltz of the Flowers.
A story is also told that Tchaikovsky's sister 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.



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Nutcracker Introduction

The Nutcracker, a two-act ballet by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is perhaps the composer's best-loved work. Tchaikovsky's adaptation of the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann was commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1891. The original production was staged by Marius Petipa on December 18, 1892, premiering on a double-bill with a now semi-forgotten Tchaikovsky opera, Iolanta.

The plot of Hoffmann's story on which The Nutcracker is based is much more complex than that of the ballet, in which events had to be considerably simplified; Hoffmann's tale contains a long flashback story within its plot entitled The Tale of the Hard Nut, explaining how and why the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. In Hoffmann's original version, the heroine Marie's adventures with the toys and with the Nutcracker are not a dream, and the Nutcracker does not turn into a Prince after his battle with the Mouse King, but at the end of the story - after Marie tells the now inanimate Nutcracker that she would love him even if he remained ugly forever. A year and a day after she declares this, the Prince returns to Marie and asks her to marry him. She accepts, and goes back to reign with him in the Doll Kingdom.

In Western countries, The Nutcracker has become perhaps the most popular of all ballets, performed primarily during the Christmas season. In the United States, especially since the 1960's, it has transcended its origins as a mere ballet or piece of classical music, becoming a part of American tradition almost as much as the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Countless cities across the U.S. now stage the ballet at Christmastime, and new telecasts, video versions, and adaptations of it, both faithful and very freely adapted ones, now appear even more often than before. There are several versions now on DVD that have never been telecast in the U.S. Its music, especially the music of the suite derived from the ballet, has become familiar to millions all over the world.




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