Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Vie Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: has become such a huge tradition for so many people
Speaker 1: around Christmas. I know, for my own part, my mom
Speaker 1: and I went to the North Carolina School of the
Speaker 1: Arts production of The Nutcracker together for many, many years.
Speaker 1: We had a family friend a little older than me
Speaker 1: who went from being Clara as a child to being
Speaker 1: asked to come back and be the sugar Plum Ferry
Speaker 1: after she had gone on to continue her dance education
Speaker 1: in New York. For a whole lot of people, the
Speaker 1: Nutcracker is the first ballet they ever experienced, or maybe
Speaker 1: the only ballet they ever experience, and it's by far
Speaker 1: the biggest show and the I guest source of ticket
Speaker 1: revenue for a lot of ballet companies. And even if
Speaker 1: you have never experienced this whole ballet music from The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker has also become a huge part not just of
Speaker 1: the Christmas season, but also beyond it. Like I can
Speaker 1: even remember a commercial from the nineteen eighties that set
Speaker 1: a smurfberry crunch jingle to the march from Act one.
Speaker 1: I will maybe sing that in our behind the scenes, Okay,
Speaker 1: I will try to remember that you just said that. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a little odd when you think about it, that
Speaker 1: the Nutcracker ballet has become such a phenomenon, particularly in
Speaker 1: North America, but it's also spread to other places too,
Speaker 1: considering that it is a Russian adaptation of a German
Speaker 1: story that was never really a Christmas staple in its
Speaker 1: home country. Um So that is the story that we're
Speaker 1: going to tell on the show today. The ballet The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker is based on the eighteen sixteen story The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: and the Mouse King by Ernst Theodore Amadeus Hoffman or E. T. A. Hoffman.
Speaker 1: His name at birth was actually Earnst Theodore ville Helm,
Speaker 1: but he changed wille Helm to Amadeus out of admiration
Speaker 1: for those gang Amadeus Mozart Hoffman was born in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy six and Khonugsburg, Prussia now Kaliningrad, Russia. Although he
Speaker 1: spent most of his adult life in what is now Germany,
Speaker 1: Hoffman wore a lot of hats. He trained as a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and served as a law officer before turning his attention
Speaker 1: to music. He worked as a composer and a music critic.
Speaker 1: He was also an artist, a theater director, and a writer,
Speaker 1: and his written work included a lot of fairy tales,
Speaker 1: including works for children. His fiction tended to be pretty
Speaker 1: haunting and strange, with stories that carried a whole sense
Speaker 1: of ambiguity. They blurred the lime, are toyed with the
Speaker 1: relationships between imagination and reality, and this included his work
Speaker 1: for young readers, even though a lot of children's literature
Speaker 1: at that point tended to focus more on more heavy
Speaker 1: handed didactic stories and morality tales. Up that wasn't the
Speaker 1: only stuff being published, but a lot of it was very,
Speaker 1: very moralizing. The Nutcracker and the Mouse King is sometimes
Speaker 1: described as the first fantasy written specifically for children. The
Speaker 1: story contains fourteen short chapter, some of which just stop
Speaker 1: rather than reaching any sort of logical pause in the narrative.
Speaker 1: There is some speculation that it was broken up this
Speaker 1: way so that it could be read one chapter per night,
Speaker 1: starting on Christmas Eve as the story does, and ending
Speaker 1: with Epiphany on January six, so parts of the story
Speaker 1: will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Nutcracker ballet.
Speaker 1: The main character is a seven year old girl, although
Speaker 1: her name is Maurice Stalbaumb, not Clara Silber, how us,
Speaker 1: as it is in a lot of productions of The Nutcracker.
Speaker 1: She has a younger brother, Fritz, and an older sister, Louise,
Speaker 1: although Louise does not play a big part in the story.
Speaker 1: Their godfather, Drosselmeyer, is both beloved and a little frightening.
Speaker 1: He is old and mysterious and wears an eye patch,
Speaker 1: and he arrives on Christmas Eve with gifts for the family.
Speaker 1: One of those gifts is an ingenious clockwork palace, but
Speaker 1: the children, especially Fritz, are quickly bored of it. The
Speaker 1: clockwork figures just do the same thing over and over.
Speaker 1: Then Marie finds a nutcracker among the other Christmas gifts.
Speaker 1: Basic tools made to crack nuts have existed at least
Speaker 1: since the fourteenth century, but carved wooden nutcracker dolls, typically
Speaker 1: made to look like soldiers, started to become popular in
Speaker 1: seventeenth century Germany. In the story, the Nutcracker is meant
Speaker 1: as a gift for everyone, but Marie is particularly taken
Speaker 1: with it and deep upset when her brother breaks it
Speaker 1: by forcing it to crack a nut that is much
Speaker 1: too big. Marie tries to bind up the Nutcracker's injury
Speaker 1: with a ribbon, and Drosselmeyer does a more thorough repair.
Speaker 1: Later on that night, Marie puts the Nutcracker to bed,
Speaker 1: and that's where the name Clara comes in. Clara is
Speaker 1: Marie's new doll, and Marie commandeer's Clara's dollbed so that
Speaker 1: the Nutcracker will have a comfortable place to recuperate. As
Speaker 1: she is checking on the Nutcracker late at night, Marie
Speaker 1: sees the mouse King and his army preparing for a
Speaker 1: war against her brother's toy soldiers, who have all come alive.
Speaker 1: The doll Clara saves the Nutcracker when he tries to
Speaker 1: make a foolhardy leap from the top of a high
Speaker 1: shelf to join in the fray. Marie also sees Drosselmeyer
Speaker 1: on top of the Grandfather Clock in place of the
Speaker 1: owl that is normally there, although he does not intervene
Speaker 1: in the fight with the mice. After hitting the mouse
Speaker 1: king with her shoe, Maurice wounds and later wakes up
Speaker 1: in her own bed. So a lot of what we
Speaker 1: have just said follows a lot of the action of
Speaker 1: Act one in most productions of The Nutcracker, So if
Speaker 1: you've seen The Nutcrackers, probably pretty familiar. But then Hoffmann's story.
Speaker 1: Marie cuts her arm on a piece of broken glass
Speaker 1: during this battle, and when drossell Meyer comes to visit
Speaker 1: her during her recovery, he tells her a story, one
Speaker 1: involving a royal clockmaker also named drossell Meyer, and the
Speaker 1: story within a story. Clockmaker drossell Meyer served a king
Speaker 1: and queen who had a beautiful baby daughter, Princess Perlapat.
Speaker 1: The queen was preparing fat to make sausages or puddings,
Speaker 1: which were the king's favorite dish, when Lady mouse Rank,
Speaker 1: who's basically the queen of the mice, asked her for
Speaker 1: some of it. The queen obliged, but then Lady mouse
Speaker 1: Rank and her kin ate so much of the fact
Speaker 1: that there was not enough left for the king's puddings.
Speaker 1: The king was furious, and drossell Meyer, the clockmaker, decided
Speaker 1: to use his ingenuity to build traps to get rid
Speaker 1: of all the mice. Lady mouse Rank, of course, did
Speaker 1: not appreciate that so many of her kin were killed
Speaker 1: in the royal family's new mouse traps, so she cursed
Speaker 1: Princess Pearl a Pat with ugliness. After consulting with the
Speaker 1: royal astrologer, Drosselmeyer determined that Princess Pearl La Pat could
Speaker 1: only be cured with a supernaturally hard krakatuck nut cracked
Speaker 1: open and presented to her by a young man who
Speaker 1: had never been shaved and never worn boots. After years
Speaker 1: and years of searching, Drosselmeyer finally found a krakatuck nut
Speaker 1: in possession of his brother in Nuremberg and his brother's son,
Speaker 1: so his nephew turned out to have never been shaved
Speaker 1: and never worn boots. Uncle and nephew returned to the
Speaker 1: palace with the nut, where a long line of potential
Speaker 1: suitors lined up to try to bite it open. All
Speaker 1: of them failed until the younger draw ussell Meyer that nephew,
Speaker 1: the last in line, succeeded, but the young drossell Meyer
Speaker 1: and Princess Pear La Pat did not live happily ever after.
Speaker 1: Just after breaking the curse on the princess, the clockmaker's
Speaker 1: nephew accidentally stepped on Lady mouse Rink, killing her with
Speaker 1: her dying breath. Lady Mousehrink curse him, transforming him into
Speaker 1: a Nutcracker. Princess pear La, pat horrified banished the Nutcracker
Speaker 1: and his uncle, the Clockmaker. The Royal Astronomer, who was
Speaker 1: also exiled for his role in all of this, predicted
Speaker 1: that the Nutcracker's curse would be lifted only if someone
Speaker 1: fell in love with him. Of course, at this point, Marie,
Speaker 1: hearing this story, concludes that it is real that her
Speaker 1: beloved Nutcracker toy is really the transmogrified nephew of the
Speaker 1: Royal Clockmaker, and that Royal Clockmaker is none other than
Speaker 1: her godfather, Drosselmeyer. Marie demands to know why drossell Meyer
Speaker 1: is not helping his nephew, after all, she saw him
Speaker 1: right there on the clock on the night that the
Speaker 1: Nutcracker fought the mouse King. Once Marie has deduced what's
Speaker 1: going on, the mouse King starts demanding tribute, eating his
Speaker 1: way through all her treats and toys. Then one day
Speaker 1: she notices that the Nutcracker has a spot of blood
Speaker 1: on his neck. As she's cleaning it off, he asks
Speaker 1: for a sword. She gives it to him, and he
Speaker 1: is finally victorious in his fight against the mouse King,
Speaker 1: cutting off the mouse king seven heads and presenting Marie
Speaker 1: with seven little crowns. The Nutcracker takes Marie to a
Speaker 1: magical kingdom with meadows made of candy, a lemonade river,
Speaker 1: and towns made of gingerbread and bond bonds. She soon
Speaker 1: learns that the Nutcracker is the Prince of Comfort Turemburg,
Speaker 1: or the Kingdom of Sweets. Marie once again wakes up
Speaker 1: in her own bed, and when she tries to tell
Speaker 1: her family what has happened, they are dismissive, but soon
Speaker 1: her god father, Drossell Meyer's young nephew arrives from Nuremberg.
Speaker 1: The nephew thanks Marie for saving him, and he proposes.
Speaker 1: A year and a day later, Marie and the younger
Speaker 1: Drossell Meyer Mary and from there Rain is King and
Speaker 1: Queen of the Kingdom of Sweets. This whole story is
Speaker 1: twisting and layered. It folds back on itself at various points.
Speaker 1: Marie often tells her parents what she's experienced and seen,
Speaker 1: only for them to blame her fevered mind and order
Speaker 1: her to stop telling such wild tales. As her godfather
Speaker 1: Drosselmeyer tells her this story, he also suggests that it's real,
Speaker 1: but then when he talks to her parents, he dismisses
Speaker 1: what she's saying as fancy. As one example, he tells
Speaker 1: her parents that the mouse King's seven crowns are a
Speaker 1: gift that he gave her years before, certainly not something
Speaker 1: belonging to a seven headed mouse king gas lighting. The
Speaker 1: book's tone is fairly ominous, actually, and it draws heavily
Speaker 1: from German romanticism. The brothers grim and They're dark and
Speaker 1: sometimes grewesome collections of fairy tales date from around this
Speaker 1: same time. Past podcast subject Casper David Friedrich was another
Speaker 1: of Hoffmann's contemporaries, and many of his landscapes have a
Speaker 1: similarly eerie and foreboding, although still very beautiful feel. But
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four, more than twenty years after e
Speaker 1: t A. Hoffman's death, past podcast subject Alexandre do my
Speaker 1: Pair adapted The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and translated
Speaker 1: into French. The resulting book had the same basic plot
Speaker 1: and the same sort of story within a story, but
Speaker 1: with a tone that was generally a lot lighter and
Speaker 1: more cheerful than the original. And it is this version
Speaker 1: that was adapted into a ballet, or at least part
Speaker 1: of it was. We're going to talk more about that
Speaker 1: after a sponsor break. Pyotr Iliot Chikovsky was born in
Speaker 1: Russia in eighteen forty and he started composing music by
Speaker 1: the age of four and taking piano lessons at five.
Speaker 1: But Russia didn't have a formal system of education for
Speaker 1: musicians and composers yet, so it did not occur to
Speaker 1: his parents at first that this could be a career
Speaker 1: for him, so they focused his education on the idea
Speaker 1: that he would become a civil servant. That eventually changed, though.
Speaker 1: He became one of the first students at the St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg Conservatory after it was established in eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: and he eventually became famous both within and outside of Russia,
Speaker 1: composing seven symphonies, eleven operas and various concertos, cantatas, quartets,
Speaker 1: choral works, and three ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty
Speaker 1: and The Nutcracker. And the Nutcracker ballet was part of
Speaker 1: a two part commission from Russia's Imperial Theaters in St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: The other being a one act opera. The ballet was
Speaker 1: his second collaboration to include both Imperial Theaters director Ivan
Speaker 1: Vassevlowski and French choreographer Marius Petepa, chief choreographer of the
Speaker 1: Imperial Ballet. The three men had previously worked together on
Speaker 1: The Sleeping Beauty, with Zevlowski commissioning the work, writing the
Speaker 1: libretto and being heavily involved in the costume and set design,
Speaker 1: and Petepa choreographing the ballet and providing detailed instructions to
Speaker 1: Chukovsky on the music. The Sleeping Beauty had been a
Speaker 1: success after opening at the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg
Speaker 1: in eighteen nine, and Vesvelovski was hoping for something similar
Speaker 1: to happen with The Nutcracker. The Nutcracker and the Mouse
Speaker 1: King had become a well known and widely read children's story,
Speaker 1: and he chose Alexandre Duma's adaptation of it as the
Speaker 1: ballet's starting point. Even though classical ballet does not typically
Speaker 1: include spoken language or narration, by the nineteenth century, the
Speaker 1: process of creating a ballet generally started still with a libretto,
Speaker 1: a written narrative laying out the story that the ballet
Speaker 1: would tell the composer, choreographer, set designer, and costume designer.
Speaker 1: Basically everyone who worked on creating the ballet would rely
Speaker 1: on this libretto to translate the story for the stage.
Speaker 1: The Nutcrackers libretto is generally credited to both Velowski and Petipa,
Speaker 1: although it is not entirely clear who did what in
Speaker 1: preparing it. But the Nutcracker collaboration among these men did
Speaker 1: not seem to have gone as well as it did
Speaker 1: with The Sleeping Beauty. With both ballets, Petapa provided Tchaikovsky
Speaker 1: with detailed instructions about the type of music that was needed,
Speaker 1: as in the full ballet was broken down into its
Speaker 1: scenes and dances and variations, with Petepa giving very precise
Speaker 1: instructions about how many measures of what kind of music
Speaker 1: was needed for each of them. It reads almost like
Speaker 1: a shopping list. But in The Sleeping Beauty, these notes
Speaker 1: and the libretto they had added up to a story
Speaker 1: that had deeper themes which Chakovsky could explore through musical
Speaker 1: devices like lip botifs. These represented aspects of the story
Speaker 1: while also unifying the ballet. In addition to the story
Speaker 1: of Princess Arora. The Sleeping Beauty also dealt with themes
Speaker 1: of good versus evil, and Tchaikovsky could just explore all
Speaker 1: of this and represent it through music. Meanwhile, the libretto
Speaker 1: for The Nutcracker had abandoned the deeper themes and ambiguities
Speaker 1: of Hoffmann's story. The entire middle portion of The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: and the Mouse King had been cut almost entirely, leaving
Speaker 1: only the Christmas party, Drossmeyer bringing gifts, the battle between
Speaker 1: the Nutcracker and the Mouse King, and the voyage to
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Sweets after a grand final waltz. The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker was to end with an apotheosis with a bee
Speaker 1: hive surrounded by bees. The main character, now named Clara,
Speaker 1: did not return home after her travels through the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Sweets, so it really wasn't even clear what the
Speaker 1: point of it all was. On top of his creative dissatisfaction,
Speaker 1: Tchaikovsky experienced depression and anxiety throughout his life, along with
Speaker 1: social pressures and taboos stemming from his attraction to other
Speaker 1: men at a time when homosexuality was both illegal and
Speaker 1: deeply stigmatized, and all of this may have fed into
Speaker 1: his struggle to get started on the Nutcracker. In April
Speaker 1: of eight he wrote to Zevlovsky about it, saying, quote
Speaker 1: here in Rouen, I had to call on extraordinary willpower
Speaker 1: to make an agonizing effort in order to work. As
Speaker 1: a result, what comes out is colorless, dry, hasty, and wretched.
Speaker 1: The awareness that things are not going well torments me
Speaker 1: and agonizes me to the point of sickness. A consuming
Speaker 1: depression constantly gnaws at my heart, and I have not
Speaker 1: for a long time felt as unhappy as now. The
Speaker 1: day after Chaikovsky wrote this letter, he learned by reading
Speaker 1: it in a newspaper that his sister Alexandra had died.
Speaker 1: He was at that moment on the way to board
Speaker 1: a ship for a tour of the United States, where
Speaker 1: he would, among other things, conduct music he had composed
Speaker 1: at the grand opening of Carnegie Hall. This would have
Speaker 1: been terrible in any circumstance, but this was particularly terrible timing.
Speaker 1: But Chikovsky did not cancel his tour or his appearances
Speaker 1: in the United States. Insaid it seems as though he
Speaker 1: took this transatlantic voyage as a time to contemplate and
Speaker 1: to refocus. Music historians and theorists have noted that The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker incorporates more borrowed folk melodies and existing musical themes
Speaker 1: than most of his other work does, kind of suggesting
Speaker 1: that once he did finally get underway, he still had
Speaker 1: trouble feeling creative. There's also some suggestion that the character
Speaker 1: of the sugar plumb Ferry is meant to embody his
Speaker 1: late sister. He was known to the family as Sasha.
Speaker 1: Chakovsky may not have been the only person who was
Speaker 1: facing very real creative trouble with The Nutcracker. Although Marius
Speaker 1: Petipa had been the one to write Chaikovsky's instructions for
Speaker 1: the music and initial notations for the choreography, he did
Speaker 1: not choreographed most of the ballet. He became ill shortly
Speaker 1: after that work began, and he left most of it
Speaker 1: to his assistant lev Ivanov. According to Petipa's memoirs, Ivanov
Speaker 1: did all the staging and choreographed all the dances. Pettipa
Speaker 1: was seventy three when this happened, but there is some
Speaker 1: speculation that he really wasn't all that sick, and he
Speaker 1: just kind of didn't want to work on this nonsensical show.
Speaker 1: Evenov worked from Petipa's notes, but he didn't always follow them.
Speaker 1: For example, in Act two, Pettypa called for a quote
Speaker 1: tray pack for the end of the dance turning on
Speaker 1: the floor. Tray Pack is a folk dance from Ukraine
Speaker 1: and Russia. But even If took this piece in a
Speaker 1: totally different direction using hoops and lead dancer Alexander Shiev
Speaker 1: choreographed his part himself. This is why in some productions
Speaker 1: of The Nutcracker to day Trepak is this intensely athletic
Speaker 1: dance full of leaping and squatting and dancers that are
Speaker 1: dressed as like peasants or maybe cossacks well and others
Speaker 1: they are in candy stripes and dancing with hoops. If
Speaker 1: you've only seen the first version, the first time you've
Speaker 1: seen the second one, you might feel like it was
Speaker 1: a rip off. Um yeah. Chakowski compiled and Nutcracker suite
Speaker 1: featuring selections from the ballet, which was first performed in
Speaker 1: March of eight and the full ballet premiered at the
Speaker 1: marian Ski Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia on December eighteenth
Speaker 1: of that year or December six under the old style calendar.
Speaker 1: It followed Chakovsky's one act opera Yolanta, which had also
Speaker 1: been the other part of this commission. One of the
Speaker 1: criticisms of Chaikovsky's work during his lifetime was that it
Speaker 1: was not Russian enough, but The Nutcracker includes several elements
Speaker 1: that are really hallmarks of this period of Russian theater
Speaker 1: and ballet. This is really considered to be Russian ballet's
Speaker 1: golden age. Zar Alexander the Third was a patron of
Speaker 1: the arts and the theater, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: work that was created during his reign involved dramatic sets
Speaker 1: and costumes and the sorts of spectacles that these are
Speaker 1: generally enjoyed. Much of the second act of The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: is also essentially a court celebration, with Clara as a
Speaker 1: guest to the Kingdom of sweets being presented with a
Speaker 1: pageant of all of the Kingdom's best and brightest, and
Speaker 1: some of this court review highlights Russia in its presentation,
Speaker 1: especially the series of Spanish, Chinese, Arabian and Russian dances
Speaker 1: also known as Chocolate Tea Coffee trip Ack, especially in
Speaker 1: Petipa's original notations. Tripp K was to be the show stopper,
Speaker 1: suggesting the Russia was the best among nations. These dances
Speaker 1: combine with others in Act two to suggest the idea
Speaker 1: of many nations living together harmoniously under the rule of
Speaker 1: one benevolent monarch, that is the sugar Plum Ferry along
Speaker 1: with her Prince. Article in the journal Dance Research by
Speaker 1: Damien Mayer also explores the idea that the use of
Speaker 1: French songs and costumes inspired by fashion of the French
Speaker 1: Revolutionary era allude to the alliance between France and Russia
Speaker 1: that developed in the eighteen nineties. And Zar Alexander the
Speaker 1: Third does seem to have liked this ballet. Chaikovsky wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to his brother saying that the Czar quote
Speaker 1: was delighted and sent for me to his box and
Speaker 1: said a whole lot of kind words. I love that.
Speaker 1: A whole lot of kind words is just a great
Speaker 1: turn of phrase. But as for everybody else, reviews a
Speaker 1: little bit mixed, and the bad reviews were often explicitly
Speaker 1: and pointedly bad. People pointed out the same aspects of
Speaker 1: the libretto that had caused Tchaikovsky so much frustration, including
Speaker 1: the fact that Act one and Act two almost felt
Speaker 1: like two totally different ballets, neither of which made a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. Some critics insisted that Act one
Speaker 1: was barely a ballet at all. People mostly stood around
Speaker 1: and pantomimed. In the words of one critic, quote, first
Speaker 1: of all, the Nutcracker can under no condition be called
Speaker 1: a ballet. It does not satisfy even one of the
Speaker 1: demands of a ballet. Ballet, as a basic genre of art,
Speaker 1: is mimed drama, and consequently must contain all the elements
Speaker 1: of norm drama. On the other hand, there must be
Speaker 1: a place in ballet for plastic attitudes and dances made
Speaker 1: up of the entire essence of classical choreography. There's nothing
Speaker 1: of this in The Nutcracker. There is not even a subject.
Speaker 1: And also, the stage was full of children. At this
Speaker 1: point in Russian ballet history, younger ballet students did not
Speaker 1: usually shared the stage with older teens and adults. Reviewers
Speaker 1: bemoaned the fact that this ballet seemed to have been
Speaker 1: made by children for children. To add to that, many
Speaker 1: of the boys in it were not dance students at all.
Speaker 1: They had been recruited from a military academy. The focus
Speaker 1: on children and the ballet's first act also meant that
Speaker 1: the most striking balletic performances done by the company's most
Speaker 1: prominent dancers didn't happen until very late in the evening
Speaker 1: in Act two, And because the Nutcracker followed this other
Speaker 1: one act opera, that meant that they got on stage
Speaker 1: very very late. People felt like they had watched a
Speaker 1: whole opera and then a bunch of kids running around
Speaker 1: for an hour before the real ballet even started, and
Speaker 1: then that ballet was over with no real resolution. Overall, though,
Speaker 1: Chaikowsky's score was praised, although sometimes that praise was a
Speaker 1: little bit backhanded, as in quote in some it's a
Speaker 1: pity that so much good music is expended on such nonsense,
Speaker 1: so unworthy of attention, But the music in general is excellent.
Speaker 1: Tchaikowski clearly had huge trouble getting started and found the
Speaker 1: early work on the ballet incredibly difficult, but it does
Speaker 1: seem that he was pleased enough with the score once
Speaker 1: he was actually done with it. One thing to note
Speaker 1: here is that we don't actually have the choreography from
Speaker 1: the Nutcrackers debut performances. Pedopies instructions to Chaikovsky have survived
Speaker 1: along with his notes and the libretto, but the oldest
Speaker 1: surviving set of more complete comprehensive notes was not written
Speaker 1: down until a few years later, so it's not really
Speaker 1: clear whether any of the criticisms of the dancing itself
Speaker 1: led the choreography to evolve over the Marinski Theaters to
Speaker 1: ninety three ballet season once that season was over, though
Speaker 1: it does not appear that major changes were made to
Speaker 1: the Nutcracker until after the Russian Revolution. While the ballet's
Speaker 1: reception was mixed to poor, its music became far more
Speaker 1: pop puler, particularly the Nutcracker Sweet. Orchestras in Europe and
Speaker 1: North America started performing the Nutcracker Sweet in the early
Speaker 1: to mid eighteen nineties, and it became widely recognizable on
Speaker 1: both sides of the Atlantic. It wasn't until decades later
Speaker 1: that the Nutcracker became a winter holiday tradition, though you
Speaker 1: will talk more about that. After a sponsor break after
Speaker 1: the eight eighteen ninety three ballet season, the Nutcracker only
Speaker 1: made spotty appearances on Russian stages for a while. Sometimes
Speaker 1: companies performed only the second act or a selection of highlights.
Speaker 1: The ballet was revived in nineteen o nine, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen Alexander Gorsky staged a version that combined the
Speaker 1: character of Clara with the sugar Plum Ferry for the
Speaker 1: first time. Vasili Vinonen introduced new choreography in nine teen
Speaker 1: thirty four, also casting adult dancers and what had originally
Speaker 1: been children's thrills. But overall the Nutcrackers appearances on Russian
Speaker 1: and then Soviet stages there's pretty spotty. Although the narrative
Speaker 1: takes place at Christmas, it also was not a Christmas standard.
Speaker 1: Easter is really the more important and festive holiday in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Soviet Union also banned Christmas
Speaker 1: celebrations in the late nineteen twenties, leading to the rise
Speaker 1: of New Year's as a secular holiday. The Nutcracker was
Speaker 1: performed outside of Russia and the Soviet Union for the
Speaker 1: first time in nineteen thirty four. That was in London,
Speaker 1: based on choreographic notes by Nicholas Sergeyev, who had been
Speaker 1: the company manager of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: When he left Russia in nineteen eighteen. He had taken
Speaker 1: the choreography for more than twenty ballets with him. They
Speaker 1: had been recorded using a dance notation method that had
Speaker 1: been developed by Vladimir ivanav It's Stepping Off. In nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: the ballet Roust to Monte Carlo presented selections from The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker while on tour in the US. Then Disney's Fantasia
Speaker 1: debut in theaters on November thirteenth, nineteen forty. This film
Speaker 1: was not a financial success, in part because World War
Speaker 1: Two shut down movie theaters in Europe, but it is
Speaker 1: credited with popularizing classical music in the United States, including
Speaker 1: selections from the Nutcracker suite. Some of the Nutcracker pieces
Speaker 1: in Fantasia include the Dance of the sugar Plump Ferry,
Speaker 1: during which fairies flitter about, opening flowers and sending dew
Speaker 1: drops down spider webs. Mushrooms twirl around. During the Chinese dance,
Speaker 1: there are long tailed fish that gracefully swim around, and
Speaker 1: coffee and thistles that very energetically danced during traypack. Although
Speaker 1: neither the fish nor the mushrooms are human, they both
Speaker 1: retain some of the exot size stereotype depictions that are
Speaker 1: often part of the Nutcracker ballet. During the Chinese and
Speaker 1: Arabian dances. The mushrooms, for example, have slanted eyes and
Speaker 1: a posture that suggests they're wearing robes, and the fish's
Speaker 1: movement and sensual demeanor suggests a harem. Fantasia has a
Speaker 1: content warning when viewed on Disney Plus Today, noting that
Speaker 1: it quote includes negative depictions and or mistreatment of people
Speaker 1: or cultures, although that's usually interpreted as referencing centaurs who
Speaker 1: appear in the pastoral symphony, some of which have been
Speaker 1: cut out of the current version of the film. When
Speaker 1: introducing the Nutcracker Sweet portion of Fantasia, narrator Deems Taylor
Speaker 1: explains that the Nutcracker Sweet is part of a ballet
Speaker 1: that wasn't much of a success and quote nobody performs
Speaker 1: it nowadays. That was more or less true in but
Speaker 1: today that sentence is hilarious. Four years after Fantasia, the
Speaker 1: sand for Cisco Ballet staged the first US performance of
Speaker 1: the full Nutcracker Ballet. The ballet's founder and choreographer William
Speaker 1: Christensen's talked through ideas for it with choreographer George Balancheen
Speaker 1: and Alexander Danilova of Ballet Russ. Christiansen had never actually
Speaker 1: seen the full Nutcracker Ballet, and later said that these
Speaker 1: conversations and particularly Balancings insights, had a huge influence on
Speaker 1: the San Francisco production. Then, in nineteen fifty four, The
Speaker 1: Nutcracker opened at the New York City Ballet with choreography
Speaker 1: by co founder George Balancheen, whose name has been anglicized
Speaker 1: from George Balanchivadza. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia,
Speaker 1: in nineteen o four, and he had studied at the
Speaker 1: Imperial School of Ballet and the marin Ski Theater. He
Speaker 1: appeared in productions of The Nutcracker before the Russian Revolution,
Speaker 1: which means that he learned and observed choreography that had
Speaker 1: started with Petepa and Ivenov back in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: He also learned other versions by other choreographers before leaving
Speaker 1: Russia in nineteen four. Lincoln Kirstein invited Balancheen to the
Speaker 1: US in nineteen thirty three to establish the School of
Speaker 1: American Ballet and the American Ballet Company. Kirstein and Balancheen
Speaker 1: went on to establish the New York City Ballet in
Speaker 1: nineteen In the New York City Ballet's nineteen fifty four
Speaker 1: Nutcracker passed podcast subject Maria's Tall Chief danced to the
Speaker 1: part of the sugar Plum Ferry. Tall Chief was a
Speaker 1: citizen of o s Age Nation and is regarded as
Speaker 1: the first prima ballerina in the United States. In this version,
Speaker 1: the young protagonist name is Marie rather than Clara and Marie.
Speaker 1: The Nutcracker prants and other roles in this first and
Speaker 1: We're danced by almost forty children from the School of
Speaker 1: American Ballet. This production was also one in which Treypack
Speaker 1: features dancers dressed in candy stripes dancing with hoops. Although
Speaker 1: Balancin's Nutcracker first opened on February second of nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: it quickly became the heart of a special holiday ballet season,
Speaker 1: and the New York City Ballet has performed it every
Speaker 1: year since then. A lot of what made The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: so reviled in Russia in had nearly the opposite effect
Speaker 1: in the United States in ninety It was still not
Speaker 1: a show that made a lot of sense from a
Speaker 1: plot standpoint, but it captured a sense of childlike holiday wonder.
Speaker 1: The audience response was less what are these children doing here?
Speaker 1: This is ballet and more. Oh, look at those kids,
Speaker 1: They're adorable. This is wholesome family entertainment. Even without a
Speaker 1: logical plot to follow, the Nutcrackers seemed to celebrate values
Speaker 1: like home and family and holiday cheer, and that was
Speaker 1: not an accident. Balancheen and the rest of the creative
Speaker 1: team at the New York City Ballet had understood that
Speaker 1: their company desperately needed something that could have mass appeal,
Speaker 1: and the Nutcracker wound up suiting that need extremely well.
Speaker 1: And even though this was happening during the Cold War,
Speaker 1: when the United States was deeply and increasingly distrustful of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, which makes it seem real weird that
Speaker 1: people would get so excited about a Russian ballet, ballet
Speaker 1: was actually something of an exception. One of the many,
Speaker 1: many ways that the US of the U. S s
Speaker 1: Are maintained a rivalry and competed with each other during
Speaker 1: the Cold War was through dance and ballet, specifically, an
Speaker 1: abridged version of the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker aired
Speaker 1: on CBS in nineteen fifty seven, and then a somewhat
Speaker 1: more complete version aired the following year in Night, with
Speaker 1: Balanchine in the role of drossel Meyer. In the ninety
Speaker 1: eight version, June Lockhart, who had recently replaced Cloris Leachman
Speaker 1: as Timmy's adoptive mother on the TV show Lassie, provides
Speaker 1: an opening introduction in which she says, quote, Christmas Day
Speaker 1: isn't Christmas without a real old fashioned story of magic
Speaker 1: and miracles. Two televised ballets, two years in a row,
Speaker 1: established the Nutcracker as an invented tradition. It reminds me
Speaker 1: a little bit of the Yes Virginia story that had
Speaker 1: a similar trajectory. So Balancine's Nutcracker was huge for the
Speaker 1: New York City Ballet and for ballet as a whole.
Speaker 1: As its popularity spread, it became the production that ballet
Speaker 1: companies used to help fund the rest of their season,
Speaker 1: sometimes getting about half of the year's ticket revenue just
Speaker 1: from the Nutcracker. That, of course, is a blessing and
Speaker 1: a curse. One widely repeated quote that's often attributed to
Speaker 1: dance critic Richard Buckle is that each Christmas quote, we
Speaker 1: are all one nutcracker closer to death. For much of
Speaker 1: its history, before this point, ballet had typically been performed
Speaker 1: on grand stages, and before royal courts, and while the
Speaker 1: Nutcracker is certainly still performed among elite dance companies on
Speaker 1: prestigious stages, it's also found a home in places like
Speaker 1: elementary schools and youth centers. It has spurred on the
Speaker 1: popularity of ballet as an art form. The popularity of
Speaker 1: the nutcracker also goes beyond ballet. It's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why decorative nutcrackers ultimately spread beyond Germany, especially as
Speaker 1: holiday decorations. In nineteen sixty one, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy
Speaker 1: chose nutcracker ballet themed decorations for a Christmas tree in
Speaker 1: the Blue Room at the White House, and that established
Speaker 1: the tradition to have a themed Christmas tree at the
Speaker 1: presidential residence. Sadly, the people who were most involved in
Speaker 1: the original creation of the nutcracker did not live to
Speaker 1: see this success and influence. Lev Ivanov died in nineteen
Speaker 1: o one at the age of sixty seven, Ivan Vizlowski
Speaker 1: died in nineteen o nine at the age of seventy four,
Speaker 1: and Marius Petipa died in nineteen ten he was ninety
Speaker 1: two at that point. All three of them outlived Pyotr Iliatchikovsky,
Speaker 1: who died on November six eight or October twenty five
Speaker 1: in the old style calendar. His cause of death at
Speaker 1: the time was reported as cholera, but there is also
Speaker 1: speculation that he took his own life, and that this
Speaker 1: may have been connected to a matter of honor related
Speaker 1: to his sexual orientation. He was only fifty three at
Speaker 1: the time, and the Nutcracker was his last ballet. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we've touched on a little bit
Speaker 1: is that parts of the Nutcracker often involved racist stereotypes,
Speaker 1: especially the national dances of Spanish or chocolate, Arabian or coffee,
Speaker 1: Chinese or tea, and Russian or traypack. Trapac of course,
Speaker 1: was meant to be a reflection of Russian ideals, including
Speaker 1: bravery and physical and military prowess, especially in its original
Speaker 1: conception as a folk dance. Although the music for the
Speaker 1: Arabian dance is adapted from a Georgian lullaby, it and
Speaker 1: the Spanish, Arabian and Chinese dances have historically all used
Speaker 1: musical elements and costumes and choreography to suggest some racial
Speaker 1: and ethnic stereotypes. How or weather, ballet companies staging the
Speaker 1: Nutcracker have dealt with this in more recent years is
Speaker 1: really all over the place, from making zero changes to
Speaker 1: re envisioning those pieces in a completely different direction, to
Speaker 1: hiring dancers from places like China and the Middle East
Speaker 1: to re choreograph those pieces in a more authentic way.
Speaker 1: The Nutcracker has also proved itself to be almost infinitely adaptable.
Speaker 1: At this point, there are multiple film and TV versions,
Speaker 1: along with prequel sequels and reimaginings. Although many stage productions
Speaker 1: are based on Balanchine's choreography or on other choreography that
Speaker 1: has its roots in the work of Petaba and even
Speaker 1: of there are so many others who are going to
Speaker 1: list just a few examples. In the nineteen eighties, the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest Ballet and choreographer Kent still wanted to return
Speaker 1: to the spirit of E. T. A. Hoffman's original story.
Speaker 1: To that end, they brought in Maurice Sendec to design
Speaker 1: the sets and write the libretto for a news staging
Speaker 1: of The Nutcracker. This became the Pacific Northwest Ballet's version
Speaker 1: of The Nutcracker for about three decades, and it was
Speaker 1: released as a film in nineties six. They also published
Speaker 1: a translation of E. T. A. Hoffman's story as a
Speaker 1: book that was translated by Ralph Mannheim and accompanied by
Speaker 1: Senda's illustrations. A version called Hard Nut debuted in Brussels
Speaker 1: in and it uses Tchaikovsky's score and is based on
Speaker 1: the E. T. A. Hoffman story, but it is a
Speaker 1: satiric comedy with choreography by Mark Morris and a production
Speaker 1: designed based on the work of illustrator and cartoonist Charles Burns.
Speaker 1: Harlem Nutcracker debuted in six choreographed by Donald Bird and
Speaker 1: working off of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's arrangement of
Speaker 1: the Nutcracker suite. And in this ballet, Clara is a
Speaker 1: widowed grandmother facing her first Christmas without her late husband.
Speaker 1: Debbie Allen Dance Academy's Hot Chocolate Nutcracker incorporates all kinds
Speaker 1: of front music and dance styles, with the rats narrating
Speaker 1: the story. Parts of this are shown in the documentary
Speaker 1: Dance Dreams Hot Chocolate Nutcracker. And then there are also
Speaker 1: just smaller special touches that ballet companies around the world
Speaker 1: have used to ground their productions of the Nutcracker in
Speaker 1: a particular time and place, and that includes in its
Speaker 1: home of Russia, Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker includes a
Speaker 1: giant Matrushka doll and Russian folk figures like dead Morowats
Speaker 1: and Snagaruchka. This ballet's heroine is known as Masha, which
Speaker 1: is a Russian derivative of the name Marie. Oh, Nutcracker,
Speaker 1: We'll talk about some more Nutcracker stuff in the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, because so much I have experience as an
Speaker 1: audience member and you have experienced as a dancer. Yep uh.
Speaker 1: Do you have listener mail in the meantime? I do.
Speaker 1: This is from Larissa. Larissa said, I wanted to write
Speaker 1: in to at least share a picture of my dog
Speaker 1: with you two. Then saw these episodes while picking something
Speaker 1: to listen to on my drive home from work. I
Speaker 1: knew I had to write in. I will pause and
Speaker 1: say the episodes in question are the iditar Bell episodes.
Speaker 1: I'm going to return to the email. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Titusville, Pennsylvania. This is one thing I did not
Speaker 1: miss in history class, and Titusville itself, the Tarbell House
Speaker 1: still stands, and last I knew you can book tea
Speaker 1: parties there. The museum is interactive which depicts the timeline
Speaker 1: of the oil boom and has engines and oil rigs
Speaker 1: in the park. Drake's Well is also replicated to exactly
Speaker 1: the original second one. The very first one ignited from
Speaker 1: a lantern, so no photograph for recreation. The hills of
Speaker 1: the area were just Derek's no trees. I know there
Speaker 1: are photos of this by John Mather. Also, it was
Speaker 1: interesting to hear the Tarbells lived in Rouseville. I had
Speaker 1: never seen a historical marker like we have all over
Speaker 1: the area that right in that small area is the
Speaker 1: oldest still producing oil well. I was so happy to
Speaker 1: see this come up as a topic. No one knows
Speaker 1: about our little area. And I'm sure a future idea
Speaker 1: could be Titus fill itself and or pit hole the
Speaker 1: ghost town. Uh. And then we got a picture of
Speaker 1: Laris's dog, Landing, who was three years old and as
Speaker 1: a pit bullterrior mixing is adorable. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this email and the picture of Larissa. If you
Speaker 1: would like to send us an email or at History
Speaker 1: podcast at I heart radio dot com. And we're also
Speaker 1: all over social media at missed in History. That's where
Speaker 1: you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our show on the I heart Radio
Speaker 1: app or wherever you like to get your podcasts. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Missed in History Class is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.