Nutcracker, Op. 71

The Nutcracker unfolds as a two-act story ballet, and orchestras often play a concert suite or extended selections rather than the full two hours, so listen for these signposts wherever they land in the program.

Act I opens on Christmas Eve at the Stahlbaum house: a bustling party scene, a mysterious gift-giver named Drosselmeyer, and the moment a girl named Clara receives a nutcracker doll. The music turns eerie and enlarged as the Christmas tree "grows" and toy soldiers battle an army of mice, capped by a sudden hush and a sweeping waltz as snowflakes fall, sung by a wordless chorus in some productions.

Act II is essentially a suite of national dances performed for Clara in the Kingdom of Sweets: a Spanish chocolate dance, Arabian coffee dance, Chinese tea dance, a boisterous Russian trepak with its famous stamping rhythm, and the delicate Dance of the Reed Flutes. Listen for the celesta, a bell-like keyboard instrument, introducing the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance with its glassy, otherworldly tone.

The evening closes with the grand Waltz of the Flowers, full orchestral swirl in triple time, followed by a final pas de deux and apotheosis that brings the dream to a warm, unhurried close.

Tchaikovsky composed The Nutcracker in 1891 and 1892 on commission from the director of Russia's Imperial Theatres, pairing it on the same bill as his opera Iolanta. The scenario, adapted by choreographer Marius Petipa from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story via Alexandre Dumas, follows a girl's Christmas Eve dream of a nutcracker prince and a kingdom of sweets. Tchaikovsky was reportedly unenthusiastic about the subject while composing it, yet he introduced the celesta, a newly invented bell-toned keyboard instrument he had discovered in Paris, specifically for the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance. The ballet premiered in Saint Petersburg in December 1892 to a mixed critical reception, while an orchestral suite drawn from the score, premiered separately that same year, was an immediate success. Over the twentieth century the full ballet became a fixture of American holiday seasons, performed by virtually every regional company and orchestra each December.