George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker^®

ACT I

It’s a snowy Christmas Eve at the Stahlbaum home, Dr. and Frau Stahlbaum and their children, Marie and Fritz, are welcoming their guests to a holiday party. There are games and gifts for the children, and dancing for everyone. Marie’s beloved godfather, Herr Drosselmeier, introduces her to his young nephew and gives her a wonderful present: a handsome wooden Nutcracker.

After the party, Marie falls asleep on the sofa with her Nutcracker. Suddenly, she sits up — something is not right.
Out of nowhere, giant mice scurry into the room, and the Christmas tree begins to grow, higher and higher, until it towers over Marie. Everything in the room disappears except for Fritz’s toy soldiers and the Nutcracker — all now as big as Marie. The Nutcracker leads the toy soldiers into battle with the mice, and Marie helps him by throwing her slipper at the fierce Mouse King, who the Nutcracker then slays. Now that the Mouse King is dead, an ancient spell has been broken, and the Nutcracker is transformed into a handsome prince. As he presents Marie with the Mouse King’s crown, she recognizes him as Herr Drosselmeier’s nephew. The children enter a beautiful forest, where the snowflakes dance a lovely waltz and guide Marie and the Prince toward the Holiday Star.

ACT II

Marie and the Prince arrive in the Land of Sweets and are greeted by the beautiful Sugarplum Fairy and all the other inhabitants of her realm. The Prince tells the story of the battle with the mice, describing how Marie helped him defeat the Mouse King. Everyone is delighted that the Prince and Marie are safe, and the Sugarplum Fairy leads them to a glittering throne, where they can enjoy cakes and candies. Everyone dances for the two children: Hot Chocolate, Tea, Coffee, the Candy Canes, the Marzipan Shepherdesses, and Mother Ginger, with her eight polichinelles. Then comes the Waltz of the Flowers, with a shimmering Dewdrop dancing among the lovely blooms, and finally, the Sugarplum Fairy returns with her Cavalier to perform a majestic dance.

It’s time for Marie and the Prince to say goodbye. Everyone returns to bid them farewell, and they soar off on the Holiday Star.

When George Balanchine chose The Nutcracker as New York City Ballet’s first full-length ballet, it was a decision that surprised many. After all, by the 1950s, the young City Ballet had already made a name for itself with abstract, neo-classical works, and not only was The Nutcracker as Old World as you could get, but audiences had never really warmed to it. Since its premier in 1892, it had been performed only fitfully, very much a poor relation in classical ballet. But Balanchine thought contemporary audiences would respond warmly to the charm of the story and the beauty of the score, as he had when he had danced the ballet as a young student in St. Petersburg.

As we now know, Balanchine’s hunch paid off. His Nutcracker premiered on February 2, 1954, and it quickly became New York City Ballet’s biggest box office success. Its popularity prompted other ballet companies to present their own Nutcrackers, and the ballet and the music are now staples of the holiday season.

Tchaikovsky composed that glorious music in 1891—the third and last of his great ballet trilogy, following Swan Lake (1872) and The Sleeping Beauty (1890). The story was taken from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, a dark, complicated tale that was much simplified for the ballet. Balanchine’s affinity for this material is clear; his Nutcracker is a lively, warmhearted creation that appeals to adults and children alike, never losing its magic.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Balanchine is regarded as the foremost contemporary choreographer in the world of ballet. He came to the United States in late 1933, at the age of 29, accepting the invitation of the young American arts patron Lincoln Kirstein, whose great passions included the dream of creating a ballet company in America. The School of American Ballet, founded in 1934, was the first product of the Balanchine-Kirstein collaboration until October 11, 1948, when the New York City Ballet was born. Balanchine served as its ballet master and principal choreographer from 1948 until his death in 1983.

A major artistic figure of the twentieth century, Balanchine revolutionized the look of classical ballet. Taking classicism as his base, he heightened, quickened, expanded, streamlined, and even inverted the fundamentals of the 400-year-old language of academic dance. Although at first his style seemed particularly suited to the energy and speed of American dancers, especially those he trained, his ballets are now performed by all the major classical ballet companies throughout the world.