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The holidays wouldn’t be complete without The Nutcracker ballet. Here is a closer look at The Nutcracker a favorite holiday tradition.

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A Brief History of The Nutcracker: Tchaikovsky, Dumas, and Hoffmann

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Here is a holiday tradition that seems as old as Christmas trees and mistletoe.

(SOUNDBITE OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY SONG, "NUTCRACKER OVERTURE")

MONTAGNE: Those are the opening notes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker." Thousands of musicians and dancers all over America perform it during the holidays. And here to talk about how "The Nutcracker" became a tradition is MORNING EDITION music commentator Miles Hoffman. Good morning, Miles.

MILES HOFFMAN, BYLINE: Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: Christmas and "The Nutcracker," honestly though, it feels like the two have gone together forever.

HOFFMAN: It does seem that way, especially since at this time of the year, it's hard to find a ballet company of any size anywhere in the country that doesn't present "The Nutcracker."

(SOUNDBITE OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY SONG, "DANCE OF THE MIRLITONS")

HOFFMAN: Believe or not, though, Renee, the tradition of presenting "The Nutcracker" at Christmas time is a relatively recent tradition.

MONTAGNE: Although since the story takes place on Christmas Eve, isn't the connection rather a natural one?

HOFFMAN: Well, yeah, it is. And the very first performance, which was in St. Petersburg in Russia in 1892, did take place around Christmas. But the ballet itself wasn't terribly successful. Everybody liked the first act with the big Christmas tree and the children and the toy soldiers and the battle with the Mouse King. But there's really hardly any drama in the second act. It's just essentially a series of colorful dances, and many people just didn't find the story terribly convincing.

(SOUNDBITE OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY SONG, "MARCH OF THE TOY SOLDIERS")

MONTAGNE: Though here we are with the "March Of The Toy Soldiers." That's pretty convincing.

HOFFMAN: (Laughter). Yeah that's from Act One of "The Nutcracker." In fact for many years after the premier, the complete ballet was performed very rarely. The first complete performance outside Russia, in fact, was not until 1934 in London. And then the first complete "Nutcracker" in the United States didn't come until 10 years after that. The San Francisco ballet performed "The Nutcracker" on Christmas Eve of 1944. But it wasn't until the 1960s that performances of the complete "Nutcracker" ballet really took off as an annual Christmas tradition around the country.

MONTAGNE: And, Miles, though, even though you've just said that the ballet itself wasn't especially successful, and not at the very beginning, people have always loved the music, right?

HOFFMAN: Well, yes (laughter) they have. And not only have people always loved the music, they loved it before the ballet was ever performed. Tchaikovsky had made a concert suite from the ballet music. He extracted some of the music from the ballet. And that suite was played in St. Petersburg something like six months before the ballet was ever performed. And a friend of Tchaikovsky wrote in his memoirs that at one of the early performances in St. Petersburg almost every separate number of the piece was encored. It was played again. And after the performance Tchaikovsky was literally dragged up onto the stage and pelted with flowers. And frankly it's still the numbers from the suite that people know and love the best.

(SOUNDBITE OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY SONG, "DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY")

MONTAGNE: Talk about love - every little girl - the beloved the "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy." And that twinkly sound, it sounds like a music box. That comes from an instrument called the celesta. Tell us more about that.

HOFFMAN: Well, that's another great story. The celesta had been invented in Paris in 1886 by a man named Auguste Mustel. Celesta from the word celestial, heavenly. And Tchaikovsky was in Paris in 1891, and he heard the instrument played. He was so captivated by the sound that he decided to use it for his ballet - the one he was working on, "The Nutcracker." But he told his publishers, number one, they should order it. They should right away get one of these instruments. But he told them to keep it a secret because he was afraid if the composers Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov heard the sound of the celesta they'd use it before he did. He didn't want to get scooped.

MONTAGNE: Well, of course now the Nutcracker joins other Christmas music that it becomes ubiquitous around this time of year. You know, almost shopping mall music. Do you think people will ever get tired of "The Nutcracker"?

HOFFMAN: I don't think so, Renee. It's true that it's inescapable around this time of year. So in a way it's easy to make fun of. And there are, I must say, some snooty, academic types who tend to look down their noses at Tchaikovsky, period. They like to say that all he knew how to do was to write pretty melodies. But first of all those people are - what's the word? - wrong. That's one word. Tchaikovsky was actually a brilliant composer on many, many levels. And if "The Nutcracker" demonstrates nothing else, it demonstrates that Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest masters of instrumental color and orchestration. Not to mention the fact that Tchaikovsky's melodies aren't just pretty. And many of them in this - just in this one ballet - are immortal. These are immortal melodies, not just nice melodies. And if it's so easy to come up with melodies that people all over the world would love forever and ever how come more people don't do it? How come more of the snooty types don't do it themselves?

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

MONTAGNE: Obviously you - obviously a Tchaikovsky fan, Miles.

HOFFMAN: I am a Tchaikovsky fan, Renee. And, you know, there's another wonderful thing about "The Nutcracker," which is that for thousands and thousands of children it's been their first exposure both to ballet and to classical music. So how could that be bad?

MONTAGNE: And also for many children it would be their first chance to perform in a ballet as well.

HOFFMAN: Right, right. And by the way there's a very sweet story speaking of that about Tchaikovsky and the children who performed in the very first "Nutcracker" in St. Petersburg. Apparently the children had a hard time learning the little, toy instruments they were supposed to play on stage. And in fact they never did learn them very well, but after the premier Tchaikovsky sent a note to all the children telling them that he was very happy with their performance and he sent each child a box of candy.

MONTAGNE: Oh, well, a very sweet Christmas tradition. I'm glad we have it - "The Nutcracker." And happy holidays to you, Miles, and your family.

HOFFMAN: Thank you, Renee. You, too.

MONTAGNE: Miles Hoffman is the violist of the American Chamber Players and the author of "The NPR Classical Music Companion."

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)

MONTAGNE: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene.

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How Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker' Became A Holiday Tradition

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: Here is a holiday tradition that seems as old as Christmas trees and mistletoe. (SOUNDBITE OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY SONG, "NUTCRACKER OVERTURE") MONTAGNE: Those are the opening notes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker." Thousands of musicians and dancers all over America perform it during the holidays.

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The story of Clara and her magical nutcracker far predates the ballet, and with Disney's new movie, it is clear that the evolution of is far from over! Learn the origins of The Nutcracker and about the many famous hands that helped make it the Christmas tradition it is today.

The original production of The Nutcracker, 1892. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Nutcracker, as we know it, is a two-act ballet that tells the story of a girl named Clara and the magical nutcracker doll she receives as gift on Christmas Eve from her godfather, the mysterious Drosselmeier. Though the ballet premiered in 1892, The Nutcracker 's roots go back much farther. Looking back we discover that this story has a history as varied and rich as the Land of Sweets itself!

The Nutcracker's German roots

To find The Nutcracker's origins, we must first travel to Germany in 1816, when author and composer E.T. A. Hoffmann published his story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The plot begins similar to the ballet, with a young girl (called Marie, not Clara) and her brother Fritz at a Christmas party. Drosselmeier gives the children a nutcracker as a gift, but it gets broken.

Later that night, Marie goes to check on her wounded nutcracker and sees that the Christmas tree in the living room has grown to a gigantic size. An army of mice emerge, including the Mouse King who, in the original version, has seven heads. The nutcracker comes to life and leads the other toys in battle against the mice. Marie is swept up in the fighting and faints into a glass cabinet, injuring her arm.

This is where the story departs from the ballet in ernest; Marie wakes up and as she is recovering from her injury, Drosselmeier tells her the story of how nutcrackers came to be and why they look the way they do; the result of a nasty curse from the Mouse Queen. Later on, Marie assists the nutcracker in slaying the Mouse Queen's son and eventually breaks the curse on him, after which they marry and go to live in the nutcracker's kingdom, a land populated by dolls.

Hoffmann, also a writer of horror, was one of the key players in the Romantic movement, an artistic and intellectual era that emphasized strong emotions like fear and awe. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that the original version of The Nutcracker had a darker tint and a grit similar to that of Grimm's fairy tales.

French adaptation

So how did Hoffmann's story become the sugary-sweet narrative we see played out on stage? Years later, in 1844, the story was adapted by Alexandre Dumas, the revered French author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo. Legend says that after falling asleep at a holiday party, a band of children tied Dumas to a chair and demanded a story. In response, Dumas told a lighter version of The Nutcracker, which he later wrote and translated into French. Dumas' version adapted the story for younger audiences and lessened the dark (and even frightening) romantic elements, making The Nutcracker the light and dreamy story we know today.

From fairytale to ballet

Finally, The Nutcracker traveled to Russia. Dumas' version of the story was used to create the two-act ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. It was then that The Nutcracker gained its distinctive music, written by the celebrated Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who also wrote the music for classics like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

The Nutcracker premiered in Saint Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892. The story was told like never before, complete with swirling snowflakes, the Sugar Plum fairy and dances from all the nations within the Land of Sweets: Spanish chocolate, Arabian coffee, Chinese tea, Russian candy canes, Danish flutes, and of course, Mother Ginger and her "Polichinelles."

After the premier, the ballet was given mixed reviews. However, despite it's mixed reception, The Nutcracker has endured and grown into a beloved Christmas tradition.

Future adaptations

The story of Clara and the Nutcracker has come a long way throughout history, but the journey is far from over! Disney has released it's own adaptation, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Made in the same style as the other recent Disney remakes like Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, this film features a star-studded cast (Morgan Freeman, Kiera Knightly and real-life ballet star Misty Copland) in a new adaptation of the story with a darker twist.

The film opens in the classic way, with Clara and company at a Christmas party. However, this plot will focus on Clara's quest to find a key that will open a box containing a gift given to her by her late mother. Another major difference is the re-interpretation of Mother Ginger (played by Helen Mirren) as the villain.

It appears that this more sinister version of The Nutcracker will, at least in some way, harken back to it's romantic roots in E.T.A. Hoffmann's literature.

Curious about how your other holiday favorites came about?

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Of Mice King and Men: The History of The Nutcracker

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The story of Clara and her magical nutcracker far predates the ballet, and with Disney's new movie, it is clear that the evolution of is far from over! Learn the origins of The Nutcracker and about the many famous hands that helped make it the Christmas tradition it is today.

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An easy-read version of the history of this ballet

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An easy-read version of the history of this ballet

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The Nutcracker has become an essential part of the holiday season-not to mention a part of most dancers' DNA. These days, the ballet is a beloved tradition, and the lifeblood of many dance companies, whose budgets depend on its reliably great ticket sales.

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The Nutcracker Ballet's history in list form

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The Nutcracker Ballet's history in list form

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A brief history of the ballet, from the short story on which it is based to its current production by the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
On Tuesday, Google featured a Google Doodle celebrating the 120th birthday of The Nutcracker, the seasonal ballet beloved the world over. To celebrate the momentous anniversary, we've put together a brief history of the ballet, from the short story on which it is based to its current production by the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto.

1816: German author E.T.A Hoffman publishes The Nutcracker and The Mouse King .

1844: The Nutcracker ( Histoire d'un casse-noisette) , itself a story adaptation of Hoffman's tale, is published by French author Alexandre Dumas. Dumas' tale, a somewhat watered-down version of Hoffman's, is used as the basis for the Tchaikovsky ballet. (Dumas is also the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers , among other titles.)

1890: Ivan Vsevolozhsky, director of the imperial theatre in Russia, is so impressed by Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty that he commissions the composer to put together a double-bill featuring an opera and a ballet. Tchaikovsky would collaborate with choreographer Marius Petipa, with whom he worked on The Sleeping Beauty , to compose The Nutcracker Suite, which would be performed with Iolanda .

[npooyala src="RtajdsNzrzkHU0jEsm3b1m9iaI7Ke1SY" playlist="yes"]

December 18, 1892: The Nutcracker makes its debut in St. Petersburg, Russia. Pepita, having dropped out due to illness, is replaced by Lev Ivanov as the principle choreographer. The choreography is criticised as confusing, and many consider the storyline unfaithful to Hoffman's original tale.

1919: Russian choreographer Alexander Gorsky stages a production that fixes many of the issues in Pepita/Ivanov's original production, choosing to cast lead character Clara as a teenager instead of a small child.

1934: The ballet is performed outside of Russia for the first time, in England, by choreographer Nicholas Sergeyev.

1940: An abridged version of the ballet is staged in New York City.

1944: The full ballet is performed in the United States for the first time, by the San Fransisco Ballet, with choreography by Willam Christensen, who was assisted by George Balanchine. The San Fransisco Ballet was the first company to make The Nutcracker an annual Christmastime tradition.

1954: Balanchine stages his now-famous version of The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet, to overwhelming success. Balanchine's staging adhered closely to the 1892 version, and continues to be performed by the New York City Ballet, as well as the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Alabama Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre.

1963: Legendary ballet dancer Rudolph Nuryev stages a version of The Nutcracker with the Royal Ballet in London. Nuryev starred as the Nutcracker Prince in the production, the 1968 performance of which is available on DVD.

1976: Following in Nuryev's footsteps, fellow dance icon Mikhail Baryshnikov premiered a version of the dance at the American Ballet Theatre in Washington, D.C., with himself in the title role as well.

1986: The Nutcracker makes its film debut as Nutcracker: The Motion Picture . The film featured costume designs by Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak, who in 1983 had designed sets and costumes for a Pacific Northwest Ballet production. Nutcracker: The Motion Picture was directed by Carroll Ballard.

1990: The Canadian animated film The Nutcracker Prince is released. Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Megan Followes and Peter O'Toole, the animated film is not balletic, but is instead a straight narrative following the general plot of Tchaikovsky's score.

1993: George Balanchine's The Nutcracke r, the film which memorably starred Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker, is released. Several film adaptations of The Nutcracker have since been released, including one starring Barbie (2001).

2007: Ovation TV, in the U.S., began hosting its annual Battle of the Nutcrackers, in which viewers vote for their favourite production of the ballet. Mark Morris' The Hard Nut, a contemporary version first staged in 1993, has won the contest several times. (You can vote in this year's battle here .)

Present Day: The Nutcracker is currently performed at Christmastime by countless ballet companies around the world, and is often a company's highest-earning performance of the year. This year's National Ballet of Canada performance is choreographed by James Kudelka and is on now in Toronto.

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The Nutcracker Ballet turns 120 today: Here's a look at the long, candy-striped history of the Tchaikovsky masterpiece

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A brief history of the ballet, from the short story on which it is based to its current production by the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

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A robust history of The Nutcracker ballet

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A robust history of The Nutcracker ballet

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The origin of the Nutcracker, a classic Christmas Story, is a fairy tale ballet in two acts centered on a family's Christmas Eve celebration. Alexandre Dumas Père's adaptation of the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann was set to music by Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by Marius Petipa. It was commissioned by the director of Moscow's Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1891, and premiered a week before Christmas 1892. Since premiering in western countries in the 1940s, this ballet has become perhaps the most popular to be performed around Christmas time. The story centers on a young girl's Christmas Eve and her awakening to the wider world and romantic love. The composer made a selection of eight of the more popular pieces before the ballet's December 1892 premiere, forming what is currently known as the Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, as is heard in Moscow Ballet productions. The suite became instantly popular; however the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity as a Christmas performance event until almost 100 years later.

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Performance History and the St. Petersburg Premiere
The first performance of the Christmas ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta, around the Christmas holiday season on December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. It is generally agreed that Lev Ivanov, Second Balletmaster to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, worked closely with Marius Petipa, Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres and widely regarded as the Father of Russian Ballet, to create the holiday ballet. It was conducted by Riccardo Drigo, with Antoinetta Dell-Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as her Prince, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara/Masha, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker Prince, and Timofei Stukolkin as Uncle Drosselmeyer. More about Tchaikovsky's classic 'Nutcracker' score

In Europe and the U.S.
The Christmas ballet was first performed outside Russia in England in 1934. Its first United States performance was in 1944 by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director and Balanchine student Willam Christensen. The New York City Ballet first performed George Balanchine's Nutcracker in 1954 but the holiday ballet did not begin to achieve its great popularity until after the George Balanchine staging became a hit in New York City. The now well known Christmas story has been published in many book versions including colorful children-friendly ones. The plot revolves around a German girl named Clara Stahlbaum and her coming-of-age one Christmas holiday. In Hoffmann's tale, the girl's name is Marie or Maria, while Clara - or "Klärchen" - is the name of one of her dolls. In the Great Russian Nutcracker, she is affectionately called Masha.

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Composition History
Tchaikovsky accepted the commission from director of Moscow's Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, writing to a friend while composing the ballet, "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task." While composing the music for the charming Christmas story, 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 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 Adage from the Grand Pas de Deux of the second act where Clara/Masha dances with her magical Christmas present, the Nutcracker Prince. 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 (premiere 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 also employed elsewhere in the same act.

Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker
Moscow Ballet's version of the Nutcracker ballet, known as the " Great Russian Nutcracker," includes other unique elements in the telling of the traditional holiday tale. In the Moscow Ballet version, the setting is in Moscow and the city's famous onion-domed skyline is featured as a backdrop. Traditional Russian folk characters Ded Moroz (Father Christmas) and Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) escort Masha and the Nutcracker Prince to their dream world in Act II.

Finally the "Dove of Peace," exclusive to Moscow Ballet's version, welcomes the couple to the "Land of Peace and Harmony" traditionally called "The Land of Sweets." The "Dove of Peace" was inspired by performances of Stanislov Vlasov, former Bolshoi Ballet dancer and choreographer/ballet master of Moscow Ballet's inaugural 1993 Great Russian Nutcracker, and partner Lilia Sabitova, People's Artist of Russia.

"The Russian ballet style is elegant, expansive, brimful with feeling, knockout male dancer...confers an unusual thrill, and...Kids...were wide-eyed with delight," The New York Times, Alastair Macaulay, Chief Dance Critic, 2010

"Perhaps one of the most magical moments of all, was delivered by a truly excellent Snow Forest corps, a veritable highlight excelling in both synchrony and grace. Both male and female corps were outstanding all night." Calgary Herald, Stephan Bonfield 2014

"Acclaimed dancers Anatolie Ustimov and Alisa Voronova...lead a cast of traditionalists who treat the Great Russian Nutcracker as the spectacular, globe-spanning institution that it is." Denver Post, John Wenzel 2014

"[Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker]...lively and resourceful with an unusual array of bright, painted backdrops adding to the Christmas cheer...disarmingly poetic...faultless mastery of the steps...bravura expertise." - Los Angeles Times 2013 Lewis Segal

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The origin of the Nutcracker, a classic Christmas Story, is a fairy tale ballet in two acts centered on a family's Christmas Eve celebration. Alexandre Dumas Père's adaptation of the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann was set to music by Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by Marius Petipa.

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Thorough information and picture timeline of The Nutcracker Ballet's history

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Thorough information and picture timeline of The Nutcracker Ballet's history

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A brief history of the Nutcracker ballet and a retelling of the story.