The Nutcracker
In 1816, E.T.A. Hoffman published The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, a scary fairy-tale intended only for adults. Years later, Alexander Dumas père's version of the story made it happier and more appropriate for children to read. Marius Petipa, chief ballet master of the Russian Imperial Ballet, liked this new story and decided to have it made into a ballet. He commissioned Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky to write the music. Petipa’s assistant Lev Ivanov created the choreography. The production was first performed in December 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Royal Opera Ballet 2018 Nutcracker
The Four Seasons Beaumont Opera Club's first ballet presentation will be a DVD recording of the December 3, 2018 Nutcracker danced by Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov.
This version was selected for Sir Peter Wright's adherence to the traditional sequence of Land of Sweets main divertissement dances: Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, Candy Cane, Marzipan, Polichinelles and Flowers.
There is also a lot to like about the style of the Royal Opera Ballet. Ninette de Valois (née Edris Stannus - Blessington, Ireland) studied with Enrico Cecchetti early in her career and was a soloist in Les Ballets Russes before she brought the Cecchetti method to the Vic-Wells Ballet and eventually to the Royal Opera Ballet, when she founded that company in 1931.
The Nutcracker / New York City Ballet / duration: 110 mins
George Balanchine, who grew up in Russia, danced the role of the Prince in The Nutcracker in 1919 when he was 15 years old. Later, after he had moved to America and founded the New York City Ballet, he decided to choreograph his own version of The Nutcracker for his company. The first performance of this production was on February 2, 1954, in New York City, and George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker© has been an annual holiday tradition ever since. New York City Ballet usually presents 47 performances of the ballet annually. The production was filmed in 1993, and now people all around the world have enjoyed it on video.
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840 to 1893) composed the music for the ballet The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky was Russian and studied music at the conservatory in St. Petersburg. He composed many different types of music, including ballets, symphonies, operas, chamber music, concerti, and works for the piano. Besides The Nutcracker, he also wrote the music for the ballets Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Many choreographers, including George Balanchine, have made ballets to Tchaikovsky's concert music that was not written specifically for dancing.
The image above left is a link to a Nutcracker version by the the New York City Ballet.
Synopis
Synopsis in PDF format for Ballanchine's Nutcracker
Nutcracker version from the Mariinsky Ballet. Russia deserves credit for being a staunch supporter of classical ballet, primarily as a vehicle of state propaganda, but to a lesser extent for pure artistic reasons as well. Their traditional state ballet company is the Bolshoi, located in Moscow. But a more purely artistic ballet company existed in the Western front in St. Petersburg, the Imperial Russian Ballet, founded in the 1740s following the formation of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in the late 1730's. Later renamed to the Kirov during the Soviet era and then, after the fall of the Berlin Wall the Kirov renamed itself to the Mariinsky, just as the city itself was renaming back to St. Petersburg from Leningrad.
The Mariinsky Ballet company has a less boisterous style than the Bolshoi. The Bolshoi sought to project the power and influence of Soviet Russia and their dancing is full of bravura energy and athleticism. The Mariinsky, by contrast, was less boisterous a more aligned with Copenhagen with a lighter, more lyrically artistic style.