12-23-2024 4:20am

THE NUTCRACKER in History: Today's Beloved Ballet Survives a Tough Debut

Lesley Misko Editor

by Craig Bennett*

One thing the average American frequently associates with Christmas is the music of Peter Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker. During the nineteenth century, Russian music gained increasing popularity throughout Europe and America for its depth of feeling, its frequent use of folk melodies, and perhaps more than anything, its remarkably colorful orchestration. One of the chief proponents of such orchestration was Tchaikovsky himself, and the variety of orchestral instruments and their use is manifestly apparent in essentially all of his major works.

Precisely what constitutes those major works, however, is an interesting consideration, simply because Tchaikovsky considered himself to be, first and foremost, a composer of operas. However, although he composed just short of a dozen, there are only three of his operas that are produced with any frequency in this country: Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, and Iolanthe; and they are not quite so popular among audiences as the operas of Puccini, Verdi, or Wagner. Today, he is far better known for his orchestral works—his symphonies, concert overtures, concerti, tone poems, and ballet music.

His work as a composer of ballet music got off to a discouraging start. When he was asked by the director of the Imperial Theater to compose the music for a ballet, no symphonic composer had ever done so before. Furthermore, in Russia at that time, ballet was all about the dance. The music, such as it might have been, was almost incidental; and the quality of the orchestras was generally not up to that of the symphonic ensembles that performed in the concert halls of major cities. The score for any given ballet might have consisted of some original music, augmented by excerpts from previous ballets by other composers, plus some arrangements of random pieces that were never composed for the ballet but offered tempos and rhythms appropriate to the existing choreography. Tchaikovsky, being completely inexperienced at working in the genre, chose a story he had already used in a puppet theater production for his nieces and nephews and gave it the full symphonic treatment. The conductor of the ballet’s orchestra was somewhat overwhelmed and had little idea how to handle something like what Tchaikovsky had created. The musicians were equally dumbfounded. So the ballet was introduced with about a third of Tchaikovsky’s music missing, replaced by that of an assortment of other composers who had written something that the conductor deemed sufficiently appropriate but within the interpretive and performing capabilities of both himself and his orchestra. And the premier of Swan Lake was a colossal flop!

It was many years before the composer attempted another ballet. This one was Sleeping Beauty, whose premier was far more successful than that of Swan Lake. But, although it met with moderate enthusiasm in Russia, it remained essentially unknown in Europe. It was costly to produce, and there were only two productions in London and one in Milan in the following years leading all the way up to WWII.

His final ballet, The Nutcracker, had actually been suggested to him by the director of the Imperial Theater nine years before he actually began working on it. The story on which it is based is a French adaptation of the original E.T.A. Hoffman tale. He worked on it to near completion, but there was one problem that he could not seem to solve: which instrument should represent the Sugar Plum Fairy, particularly in her solo dance in the second act. Anything from the brass section—even a trumpet—would have been too heavy for a character as light, delicate, and ethereal as she. The only candidate from the strings would have had to be a violin—but that was hardly original. A flute, perhaps? Piccolo? What?

Then in 1891, he traveled to the United States to participate in the series of concerts marking the opening of New York’s Carnegie Hall. At that point, he had just about reached the conclusion that an acceptably effective musical depiction of the Sugar Plum Fairy was simply not possible. But on his way back to Russia, during a stop in Paris, he was introduced to a brand new instrument recently invented: the celesta.

The delicately tinkling bell tones of the instrument—an abbreviated keyboard whose hammers struck tiny bells tuned to the appropriate intervals—were perfect for accompanying the dance of a dainty, ethereal character such as the Sugar Plum Fairy. He asked his publisher to order him one, but secretly. He wanted to be the first composer to introduce the new instrument to Russian audiences; and he feared that if he was not, the instrument would have its unique and novel effect significantly diminished. Consequently, in an unusual move before finishing the complete ballet, he put together the “Nutcracker Suite” to be published and performed before the larger piece from which its contents were excerpted.

But the complete ballet, once it had been premiered, was a disappointment. After witnessing the first performance, the composer felt obliged to admit that he found the music somewhat boring. He believed that his music for The Nutcracker was not up to the standard apparent in his music for Sleeping Beauty. Furthermore, it was forty more years—1934—before the ballet was performed for the first time in the West.

Like that of many other well-known works that waited years for wide acceptance and popularity, the path of the Nutcracker was long and plodding. But, although the ballet was not well thought of by critics, it gradually began to be performed more and more widely, chiefly as a holiday piece. And, with an increasing number of performances before an increasing number of audiences, it began to draw closer attention from critics. As a result, it was finally elevated to a much higher position in the ranking of Tchaikovsky’s works—much closer to where it has long been in the hearts of holiday audiences everywhere and all of us who love Christmas and its festive music.

* Craig H. Bennett, author of Nights on the Mountain and More Things in Heaven and Earth, available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and the Firefly Bookstore in Kutztown, PA