A post-holiday question: I was just curious to know if The Nutcracker was intended to be a ballet originally? Or, did modern times combine his music to some storyline? - Jinx
Tchaikovski composed The Nutcracker as a ballet score, to be choreographed by Marius Pepita and Lev Ivanov of the Maryinski Ballet. The storyline comes from a childrens book by German author E.T.A. Hoffman.
-prav, “Nutcracker Prince” four years running in high school. No, seriously.
Hoffman’s book was published in Berlin in 1816, and Tchaikovsky’s ballet adaptation was first performed in Moscow in 1892.
Most ballets and operas were composed from pre-existing stories. Often the material came from folk tales. Thanks to pravnik for the specifics on The Nutcracker. I tried a Google search and couldn’t come up with anything except notes on performances and expensive books, which would no doubt have the information. If I had time I’d consult my brother, who is timpanist for the San Franciso Ballet Orchestra. He’d probably know, especially since The Nutcracker is an annual event (series, actually) for the Ballet.
Public Television ran an interesting documentary on The Nutcracker.
According to the documentary the ballet was choreographed first. Then Tchaikovsky was commissioned to do the score. He was given detailed instructions as the number of measures in each piece and in the movements within each piece. It was an astonishingly formidable task to fit interesting, lively and good music within that preset framework, but he did it.
Did anyone else see the program and do you think they got it right?