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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, I'm Eves, and you're listening to This

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Speaker 1: Day in History Class, a podcast that proves history is

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Speaker 1: always happening today. It's December eighteen nineteen. The day was

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Speaker 1: December eighteen eight two. The ballet The Nutcracker premiered at

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Speaker 1: the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia. The ballet has

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Speaker 1: since been performed many times around the world, and Pyotr

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Speaker 1: Iliot Tchaikovsky's score is one of his most famous compositions.

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Speaker 1: Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffman wrote the story The

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Speaker 1: Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was first published in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen. In the story, a seven year old girl

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Speaker 1: named Marie stall Bomb gets a Nutcracker doll for Christmas.

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Speaker 1: When she falls asleep after getting her presence on the

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Speaker 1: night of Christmas Eve, the Nutcracker leads her dolls in

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Speaker 1: battle against the mouse King. In the end, Marie breaks

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Speaker 1: occurs that was on the Nutcracker, and he comes alive

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Speaker 1: and takes Marie to the doll Kingdom, where she marries

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Speaker 1: him and becomes queen. French author Alexandra Dumas adapted the

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Speaker 1: story in eighteen forty four, in Ivan Savloski, the director

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Speaker 1: of Moscow's Imperial Theaters, commissioned Russian composer Tchaikovsky to compose

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Speaker 1: a ballet and an opera. The opera he composed was Iolanta,

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Speaker 1: a lyric opera in one act. It was his eleventh

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Speaker 1: opera and the last one he completed, and the ballet

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Speaker 1: was The Nutcracker, his last ballet. Tchaikovsky was not too

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Speaker 1: happy with using the story of the Nutcracker as the

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Speaker 1: subject of a ballet, but by March he had composed

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Speaker 1: some of the scenes. Tchaikovsky was a fan of the celesta,

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Speaker 1: a keyboard instrument, and he decided to use it in

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Speaker 1: a symphonic ballot, the Voyevoda, as well as The Nutcracker.

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Speaker 1: The celesta is famously featured in the dance of the

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Speaker 1: Sugar Plum Ferry, and Act two of the ballet selections

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Speaker 1: were first performed as an orchestral suite. In March of

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two, Pyotr Jurgensen published the full score of

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Speaker 1: the ballet and the piano arrangements by Surggey tan Yebev.

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Speaker 1: That same year, Ivan Sevloski and Marius Petipa based libretto

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Speaker 1: or the text of the ballet on Duma's version of

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Speaker 1: The Nutcracker. The ballet premiered along with Io Lanta at

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Speaker 1: the Imperial Marinsky Theater on December eighteen, eighteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: Ricardo Drigo was the conductor and lev Ivanov produced the ballet.

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Speaker 1: Some of the principal performers were Stanislava Blinska as Clauda,

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Speaker 1: Surgey Lagat as the Nutcracker Prince, and to Mafecedkolkin as

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Speaker 1: jossel Meyer. Previously, Tchaikovsky and Petipa worked on The Sleeping

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Speaker 1: Beauty together and it was a success. So The Nutcracker

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Speaker 1: opened to a full house, but the ballet got poor reactions.

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Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky wrote that it was staged well, but the audience

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Speaker 1: did not like it and was bored. Critics thought the

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Speaker 1: choreography and libretto were lackluster, and years later, the turbulence

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Speaker 1: and danger caused by the Russian Revolution of nineteen o

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Speaker 1: five lead dancers in the Marinsky Theater to flee Russia.

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Speaker 1: Though the original production of the ballet was unsuccessful, Tchaikovsky

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Speaker 1: compiled a suite of eight numbers from the ballet for

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Speaker 1: concert performance that was successful. As performances of The Nutcracker

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Speaker 1: began to be staged throughout the West, the ballet itself

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Speaker 1: grew more popular. It spread to Hungary, England, the US,

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Speaker 1: and other places in Europe and North America. Many movies

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Speaker 1: have since used the Nutcrackers music, including Disney's nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: film Fantasia, and more people have seen The Nutcracker than

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Speaker 1: any other ballet. It's a Christmas time favorite for many

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Speaker 1: ballet companies around the world, and plenty of productions have

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Speaker 1: made the libretto and choreography their own. I'm each Jeffcote

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did it yesterday. Spend some of your daily

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Speaker 1: social media time with us at t D I h

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Speaker 1: and send it to us via email at this Day

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Speaker 1: at I heeart media dot com. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: we'll see you again tomorrow. For more podcasts from I

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