ABOUT THE NUTCRACKER

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s classic is based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. This was first reworked by Alexandre Dumas, and finally a transcription by Marius Petipa, the former choreographer of the Tsars Theaters, became the basis of the original Nutcracker. This was the last work of Tchaikovsky. The premiere of The Nutcracker took place on December 18, 1892 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, preceded by a concert in St. Petersburg on March 7, where an excerpt from the ballet, the so-called Nutcracker Suite, was presented.

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The story takes place on Christmas Eve, when one of the guests, Drosselmeier’s uncle, brings a nutcracker doll as a gift to the family’s little girl, Marika. The story continues in the girl’s dream, where the puppet comes to life as a prince and takes the girl on a magical journey. At the beginning of this, they have to fight the Mouse King and his army in order to continue on the adventurous path of dreams. The play debuted in Hungary in 1927 with the choreography of Ede Brada, although it eventually became popular with Vajnonen’s choreography staged in Budapest in 1950.