On December 18, 1892 (Old Style, December 6) the first performance of The Nutcracker, a ballet in two acts with music composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). The libretto, written by Marius Petipa (1822-1910), is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It is not certain who choreographed the various parts of the ballet's first production. Petipa began the work in August, but illness prevented him from completing. Lev Ivanov (1834-1901), who was Petipa's assistant of seven years, picked up where Petipa left off. Ivanov is often credited as the sole choreographer of the original production.
On December 18, the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta. The performances were held at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. The performance was conducted by Riccardo Drigo (1846-1930), with Antonietta Dell'Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer, and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz. The rest of the children's roles, unlike many later productions, were performed by real children rather than adults, all students of Imperial Ballet School of St. Petersburg.
The original production was not a success, but the twenty-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. The complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in the U.S.
Tchaikovsky's score of The Nutcracker has become one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score 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.
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On December 18, the ballet was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta. The performances were held at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. The performance was conducted by Riccardo Drigo (1846-1930), with Antonietta Dell'Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Pavel Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche, Stanislava Belinskaya as Clara, Sergei Legat as the Nutcracker-Prince, Timofey Stukolkin as Drosselmeyer, and Vassily Stukolkin as Fritz. The rest of the children's roles, unlike many later productions, were performed by real children rather than adults, all students of Imperial Ballet School of St. Petersburg.
The original production was not a success, but the twenty-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. The complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in the U.S.
Tchaikovsky's score of The Nutcracker has become one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score 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.
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