Arizona Ballet Theatre

Clara and the Prince arrive at the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The Sugar Plum Fairy and the people of the Land of Sweets dance for Clara and the Prince in the dances of Dew Drop Fairy, the Spanish dancers (sometimes Chocolate), the Chinese dancers (sometimes Tea), the Arabian dancers (sometimes Coffee), the Russian dancers (sometimes Candy Canes--their dance is called the Trepak), Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles (sometimes Bonbons, Taffy Clowns, or Court Buffoons in Baryshnikov's production), the Reed Flutes (sometimes Marzipan shepherds or Mirlitons), the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Waltz of the Flowers. The dances in the Land of the Sugar Plum Fairy are not always performed in this order.

Here's a photo of The Coda, from of one of my childhood Nutcrackers when I studied at the Boston Ballet's School, and danced with the Boston Ballet Company. The Coda typically starts off with the individual groups of Dancers coming out, one group at a time, and Dancing to their own musical themes. First the Chinese dancers come out, then Spanish, it varies, In all versions, one by one, the groups of Dancers come out and dance to their own music.

In other countries
An abridged version of the ballet was first performed outside Russia in Budapest (Royal Opera House) in 1927, with choreography by Ede Brada.^{[citation needed]} The first complete performance of the ballet outside Russia took place in England in 1934. ^[3] Its first complete United States performance was in 1944, by the San Francisco Ballet, staged by its artistic director Willam Christensen. ^[4] The New York City Ballet first performed George Balanchine's staging of The Nutcracker in 1954. ^[5]

It was not until 1944 that the first complete production in the U.S. took place, performed by the San Francisco Ballet, and choreographed by Willam Christensen. The company was the first in the U.S. to make the ballet an annual tradition, and for ten years, the only company in the United States performing the complete ballet. The company performs it annually to this day. The stage success of the Christensen version marked the first step in making productions of The Nutcracker annual Christmas season traditions all over the world - a phenomenon that did not really come to flower until the late 1960s. The San Francisco Ballet has recently taped a new production choreographed by Helgi Thomasson, which has already been issued on DVD and is scheduled to be telecast on PBS during the 2008 Christmas season.

George Balanchine

See also: List of New York City Ballet repertory

In 1954 George Balanchine followed in Christensen's footsteps by choreographing and premiering his now-famous New York City Ballet version. Balanchine's Nutcracker has since been staged in New York every year, performed live on television twice - although its first television edition, on the TV anthology Seven Lively Arts, was severely abridged - and made into a poorly received full-length feature film in 1993, starring Macaulay Culkin in his only screen ballet role. In Balanchine's version, the roles of Clara (here called Marie) and the Nutcracker are danced by children, and so their dances are choreographed to not be as difficult as the ones performed by the adults.

Mikhail Baryshnikov

The popularity of the Balanchine Nutcracker could be said to have been seriously challenged, however, by the highly acclaimed American Ballet Theatre version choreographed by and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, which premiered in 1976 at the Kennedy Center, was re-staged for television and first telecast by CBS with limited commercial interruption in 1977, and is now a TV holiday classic.

Baryshnikov omits the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Orgeat, and gives their dances to Clara and the Nutcracker/Prince; so that in his version, the two do not merely sit out most of the entire second act as they do in other productions (notably Balanchine's). In addition, although the Mother Ginger and her Clowns music is heard, we never see Mother Ginger herself, only four court clowns who perform the dance.

In Baryshnikov's version, contrary to what is often written, it is not Clara's brother Fritz who breaks the Nutcracker, but an unnamed drunken guest at the Christmas party who is trying to make the toy "grow" to life-size. He is last seen in "human" form tipsily leaving with the other guests, but eventually becomes the Mouse King in Clara's dream.

The stage version of this production originally starred Baryshnikov, Marianna Tcherkassky as Clara, and Alexander Minz as Drosselmeyer, However, for the TV version the role of Clara went to Gelsey Kirkland, and it is Kirkland, not Tcherkassky, who has been widely seen in this production of the ballet. Clara is considered one of Gelsey Kirkland's most memorable roles.

Except for Tcherkassky, the rest of the cast of this production also appeared in it on television. The television version was not a live performance of the ballet, but a special presentation shot on videotape in a TV studio (with no studio audience) in Toronto, Canada.

The Baryshnikov Nutcracker has since become both the most popular television version of the work and a bestselling videocassette and DVD version of the ballet. It usually outsells not only every other video version of The Nutcracker, including the 1993 film of Balanchine's version, but every other ballet video as well. It is still telecast annually on some PBS stations. In 2004, it was re-mastered and reissued on DVD with a markedly improved visual image showing far greater detail and more vivid colors than before, as well as sound that, if not present-day state-of-the-art, was far better than its original 1977 audio. It is only one of two versions of the ballet to have been nominated for Emmys - the other was Mark Morris's intentionally exaggerated and satirical take on the ballet, The Hard Nut, telecast on PBS in 1992. (Seven Lively Arts did win an Emmy for Best New Program of 1957, so one could say that The Nutcracker was included in that win, although the award itself did not specifically say so.)

Years later, Alessandra Ferri danced the role of Clara in a stage revival of Baryshnikov's production.

Tony Williams, who studied with me in The Boston Ballet School, and danced with me in The Boston Ballet Company, has created a totally new and different version of Nutcracker at his Ballet Company "Ballet Rox." Tony Calls it "Mixed Nuts" It got great reviews in the Boston Phoenix. Here is the review by By Marcia B. Siegel, December 19, 2008.

"Ballet Rox's Urban Nutcracker, the ultimate multicultural Christmas celebration, has become so inclusive, it's almost a blur. The cultural identities are mostly intact, but there's so much going on around them that you can lose track of the reason they're all on the same stage together. Maybe it doesn't matter. The show, at John Hancock Hall through 21 December, is a lot of fun, and it takes its highbrow heritage with a bucket of salt."

"Artistic director Anthony Williams and scenarist David Ira Rottenberg have set the traditional Nutcracker story in the home of a present-day extended family, and the Tchaikovsky score is spiked with its Duke Ellington counterpart. The slim plot follows the standard script. After the excitement of the party, Clarice dreams of a mouse invasion, toys coming to life, snowflakes in toe shoes, and then a string of dancing confections, all prompted by the magic of an avuncular Drosselmeyer."

Marcia Siegel continues: "Like other Nutcracker productions, this one has a street full of civilians to set the scene. Swarms of teenagers with their ringleaders strut onto the turf: a team of double-dutch experts, five Irish stepdancers led by Brendan O'Brien, eight tapdancers led by Sean Fielder, and two moonwalking poppers (twins Billy and Bob McClain) who can move each body part separately like mechanical dolls and can make their red satin shirts ripple by — how else? — energizing their skin.

These rowdy clans interact in challenge dances and boogie along with whoever's doing a solo. They make way for a quartet of cool seniors (Ilanga, Christian Scott, Gilbert White, and John Wyche) who sing doo-wop oldies. Amid the throngs, Clarice (Rebecca Paul), her mom (Melodie Jeffery Cassell), and bratty brother Omar (Nolan Jones) meet up with Drosselmeyer and his assistant Mini-Meyer (Michael Shannon and Yo-el Cassell) and invite them home to entertain the family's guests.

The party is hardly less chaotic, even without the rope jumpers and rhythm-dance groups. There's lots of hugging and agitated rushing around. Grandfather (Gilbert White) stands in for an absent dad. Mini-Meyer, a character whose hyperactive syndrome seems to have gotten much worse since the last time I saw the show, keeps the room at a constant buzz. A tipsy aunt (Natalie VanLandingham) pins him down on the sofa with a kiss, but that's the only time his fidgets let up.

Finally I settled down to enjoy the inspired zaniness, like the battle between the picnicking mice and the girl prizefighters on pointe. I appreciated the physicality of the real contact and choreographed acrobatics when the Mouse King (Gary Vaughn) duels with the Nutcracker (Langston Fishburne). And the snowstorm seemed almost restful, with only the dancers whirling, leaping, and stepping smoothly in organized patterns.

In the second act, Clarice meets the Sugar Plum Fairy (Autumn Hill Friday night, with partner Philip Ingrassia), whose classical routine incorporates Ellington-esque jazzy shrugs and discreet bounces that she teaches to three young disciples. The "Sweets" divertissements proceed as usual, with local flavorings. My favorite was the four fleshy Spanish ladies, who did a terrific skirt dance to accompany a bland ballerina (Olga Marchenko) in "Ritmo Latino." Rick Vigo led his hula-hoop virtuosos in the "Candy Cane" variation, and Erin Washington and Sean Fielder supervised a bunch of tiny tappers in "Mother Ginger." Breakdancers sparred with Russian folk dancers in "Caviar Caper." Branchette Janelle Gilchrist did campy ballet to Ellington's "Waltz of the Flowers" in swingtime, and six little girls shepherded by Marzipan Meredith Baer bounced in fine precision on blue-and-yellow polka-dot beach balls."

The review concludes...
"I wouldn't say this Nutcracker features the sustained choreographic challenge that the traditional work can put to its hordes of children. What it does have is energy and enterprise, and heart. After Sugar Plum's farewell, Clarice, asleep on the sofa, is awakened from her dream by her Father, who's home in uniform from Iraq — the sweetest present of all."

I enjoyed the review, and knowing Tony, his production should not be missed! Lots of people must agree! Ballet Rox gave 21 Performances last December at the Hancock Building's Theatre in Back Bay...

Suites derived from this ballet became very popular on the concert stage.

The composer also made a selection of eight of the more popular numbers from the ballet before the ballet's December 1892 premiere, forming The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, intended for concert performance. The suite was first performed, under the composer's direction, on 19 March 1892 at an assembly of the St. Petersburg branch of the Musical Society^[1]. The suite became instantly popular; the complete ballet did not achieve its great popularity until around the mid-1960s.

However, nearly all of the CD and LP recordings of the complete ballet present Tchaikovsky's score exactly as he originally conceived it.

The suite derived and abridged from the ballet became more popular for a time than the ballet itself, partly due to its inclusion in Walt Disney's Fantasia. The outline below represents the selection and sequence of the Nutcracker Suite culled by the composer.

I. Overture

II. Danses caractéristiques

a. Marche

b. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy [ending altered from ballet-version]

c. Russian Dance (Trepak)

d. Arabian Dance

e. Chinese Dance

f. Reed-Flutes

III. Waltz of the Flowers

Pletnev: Concert suite from The Nutcracker, for solo piano

The pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev adapted some of the music into a virtuosic concert suite for piano solo:

a. March

b. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy

c. Tarantella

d. Intermezzo

e. Russian Trepak

f. China Dance

g. Andante

Even though the composer, Peter (Pyotor) ilyich Tchaikovsky, himself extracted a suite of eight pieces from the ballet, that authoritative move has not prevented later hands from arranging other selections and sequences of numbers. Eventually one of these ended up in Disney's Fantasia. In any case, The Nutcracker Suite should not be mistaken for the complete ballet.

Although the original ballet is only about 85 minutes long, and therefore much shorter than either Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty, some modern staged performances have omitted or re-ordered some of the music, or inserted selections from elsewhere, thus adding to the confusion over the suites. In fact, most of the very famous versions of the ballet have had the order of the dances slightly re-arranged, if they have not actually altered the music.

• For example, in The Nutcracker: a Fantasy on Ice, a television adaptation for ice skating from 1983 starring Dorothy Hamill and Robin Cousins and telecast on HBO, Tchaikovsky's score underwent not only reordering, but also insertion of music from his other ballets and also of music from Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches.
• The 1954 George Balanchine New York City Ballet version, broadcast on TV in heavily abridged form in 1957 by CBS, restaged by the network in more complete form in 1958, and filmed with Macaulay Culkin in the title role for movie theatres in 1993, adds to Tchaikovsky's score an entr'acte that the composer wrote for Act II of "The Sleeping Beauty". It is used as a transition between the departure of the guests and the battle with the mice. During this transition, Clara's mother appears in the living room and throws a blanket over the girl, who has crept downstairs and fallen asleep on the sofa; then Drosselmeyer appears, repairs the Nutcracker, and binds the jaw with a handkerchief. In addition, the "Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy" is moved from near the end of Act II to near the beginning of the second act, just after the Sugar Plum Fairy makes her first appearance. To help the musical transition, the tarantella that comes before the dance is also cut.
• In 1965, on New Year's Day, ABC-TV telecast a one-hour abridgement of choreographer Lew Christensen's version created for the San Francisco Ballet (the choreographer was one of Willam Christensen's brothers). Cynthia Gregory danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy and dancer Terry Orr was the Snow King. ^[6]
• A filmed German-American co-production, first telecast in the United States by CBS in 1965, hosted and narrated by Eddie Albert, and choreographed by Kurt Jacob, featured a largely German, but still international cast made up from several companies, including Edward Villella, Patricia McBride and Melissa Hayden from the New York City Ballet. It aired on CBS annually between 1965 and 1968, and then was withdrawn from American network television. Famed German dancer Harald Kreutzberg appeared (in what was probably his last role) in the dual roles of Drosselmeyer and the Snow King (though in one listing, Drosselmeyer has been re-christened Uncle Alex Hoffman — presumably a reference to E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote the original tale).[1] This production cut the ballet down to a one-act version lasting slightly less than an hour, and drastically re-ordered all the dances, even to the point of altering the storyline (instead of defeating the Mouse King, who does not even appear in this production, Clara and the Nutcracker must now journey to the Castle of the Sugar Plum Fairy, where the Fairy will wave her wand and turn the Nutcracker back into a Prince). This production inserted some music from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, as two bluebirds were brought in as characters to dance the Bluebird Pas de Deux from that work.
• Rudolf Nureyev's 1967 version for the Royal Ballet, in which he dances both the roles of Drosselmeyer and the Prince, but not the Nutcracker, changes the order of some of the musical numbers, repeating the music of the "mice attack" and the departure of the guests at the end, and omitting the Final Waltz and Apotheosis which normally conclude the ballet. It was videotaped in 1968.
• In Baryshnikov's American Ballet Theatre version, all of the original Tchaikovsky score is used, but the order of the divertissement numbers in Act II (the section of the ballet with the least plot) is changed, and the "Arabian Dance" had to be omitted in the television version in order to bring the program in at 90 minutes (counting the three commercial breaks). Drosselmeyer makes his appearance at the Christmas party earlier, just before the Marche, and the music normally used for his entrance is here used as scoring for the puppet show. Baryshnikov also turned the Adagio from the "Pas de Deux" into a dance for Clara and the Nutcracker/Prince rather than one for the Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Orgeat, making it the emotional climax by shifting it to immediately before the "Final Waltz and Apotheosis" which closes the ballet.
• Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker, staged in 1983 and filmed for movie theatres in 1986 (as Nutcracker: The Motion Picture) features sets and costumes by Maurice Sendak. It adds a duet from Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades that is heard during the Christmas party sequence. In addition, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is placed very early in the second act, rather than its traditional place toward the end, and is danced by the dream Clara. This one also omits the Sugar Plum Fairy herself. It should be noted that this version tries to be truer to E. T. A. Hoffmann's original story, complete with its darker aspects and a second act with more context and flavor, although much of that flavor comes from the imaginations of Sendak and choreographer Kent Stowell, rather than from the actual Hoffmann story.
• In the Royal Ballet, London's 1985 version, telecast on A&E, Tchaikovsky's score is used and the original order of the dances is not changed at all, but the Mother Ginger dance is omitted. This version was re-staged with some of the same dancers taking different roles, as well as with new dancers, in 2001. In the 2001 version, Alina Cojocaru danced the role of Clara, a role danced in 1985 by Julie Rose. Anthony Dowell, who had danced the Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier in 1985, danced the role of Drosselmeyer in the 2001 version, telecast by PBS.
• Another ice skating version, 1994's Nutcracker on Ice, starring Oksana Baiul as Clara and Victor Petrenko as Drosselmeyer, was originally telecast on NBC, and is now shown on several cable stations. It was also condensed to slightly less than an hour, radically altering and compressing both the music and the storyline.
• Still another one-hour ice skating version, also called Nutcracker on Ice, was staged on television in 1995, starring Peggy Fleming as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Nicole Bobek as Clara, and Todd Eldredge as the Nutcracker.
• And yet another version of Nutcracker on Ice, this one starring Tai Babilonia as Clara and Randy Gardner as the Nutcracker/ Prince, was released straight-to-video in 1998, appearing on DVD in 2007.

• Selections from the Nutcracker Suite were heard in the 1940 Disney animation film Fantasia. In this film, the music from The Nutcracker is accompanied by dancing fairies, mushrooms and fish, among others and, as Deems Taylor mentions, the Nutcracker itself is nowhere in sight. As mentioned before, this suite should not be mistaken for the entire Nutcracker. The suite used is a slightly altered version of the Nutcracker Suite selected by the composer [see The Suite in this article]. This version omits the Overture and the Marche, and the remaining dances are reordered (Note: The accompanying animation is provided in parentheses):

1. Danses caractéristiques

a. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (Dew Fairies)

b. Chinese Dance (Chinese Mushrooms)

c. Reed-Flutes (Blossoms)

d. Arabian Dance (Goldfish)

e. Russian Dance (Thistles and Orchids)

2. Waltz of the Flowers (Frost Fairies & Snow Fairies)

• In 1979, a stop-motion puppet version, entitled Nutcracker Fantasy, was released, using some of the Tchaikovsky music. This version featured the voices of Christopher Lee as Drosselmeyer, and Melissa Gilbert as Clara.

• Care Bears: The Nutcracker was an 1988 animated television special based extremely loosely on the original ballet. It was made for video, and was first shown on TV on the Disney Channel.

• In 1990, another animated version, The Nutcracker Prince, starring the voices of Kiefer Sutherland and Megan Follows, was released. This one also used Tchaikovsky's music, but was actually a straightforward full-length animated cartoon, not a ballet film.

• The Jetlag Productions animation studio produced its own version of the story in 1994 entitled, simply "The Nutcracker". The animated adaptation used some of Tchaikovsky's compositions as well as some original melodies and songs.

• In 1999, a comedy version entitled The Nuttiest Nutcracker became the first computer-animated film released straight to video. An example of the skewed tone that this version took may be inferred from the fact that Phyllis Diller provided the voice of an obese Sugar Plum Fairy. Some of Tchaikovsky's music was used.

• Barbie in the Nutcracker is a direct-to-video version of the story starring, of course, Barbie the doll, released in 2001. It significantly alters the storyline.

• Princess Tutu, an anime that uses elements from many ballets as both music and as part of the storyline, uses the music from The Nutcracker in many places throughout its run, including using an arranged version of the overture as the theme for the main character. Both the first and last episodes feature The Nutcracker as their 'theme', and one of the main characters is named Drosselmeyer.

• A House of Mouse special Snowed in at the House of Mouse included an animated short, starring Mickey Mouse as the Nutcracker, Minnie Mouse as Clara, Ludwig von Drake as a character based on Herr Drosselmeyer, Goofy as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Donald Duck as the "Duck-stroke-Mouse-stroke-King-type-person" (or the Mouse King), and portrayed a brief overview of the story, narrated by John Cleese. The story ran with modern rock-style musical accompaniment.

• In 2004, Argus International in Moscow produced an animated version of "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", though it has a different tale to tell. The US version was released in 2005 and it features the voices of Leslie Nielsen as the Mouse King, Robert Hays as the mouse Squeak, Fred Willard as the mouse Bubble, and Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) as the voice of Herr Drosselmeyer.

• A 2007 straight-to-video animated film, Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale, features, of course, the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry, and incorporates elements of the ballet, including some of Tchaikovsky's music, into the film. However, it uses a very different storyline. As in Fantasia, none of the actual characters in the ballet appear, including the Nutcracker himself.

• The Wonder Pets on Nick Jr. have a Christmas themed episode called "Save the Nutcracker", featuring the Nutcracker and Mouse King from the original ballet, as well as much of the music.

In 2001, another jazz version appeared on television, this one entitled The Swinging Nutcracker.

Another one, using the Ellington-Strayhorn jazz arrangement of the score, and entitled Nutcracker Sweeties, appeared on cable television in 2006, and is available on DVD. It sets the ballet in the United States during the 1940s, and all of the dances, except for the last two, which he actually sees, are visualized by a World War II soldier on leave roaming the streets of New York in a rented car and listening to the jazz arrangement, which is being broadcast over the radio. The choreography is by David Bintley, and the work is performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

A variation of The Nutcracker is performed in the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. During a scene in a speakeasy, "The Nuttycracker Suite" is played. It features jazz versions of the famous dances within The Nutcracker, especially the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

1954, the year in which the Balanchine version of the ballet was first staged, was also the year that the first complete recording - in mono sound - appeared on Mercury Records. It was performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Doráti, who years later went on to record it complete twice more with other orchestras, on Mercury Records in 1962 and on Philips Records in 1975 respectively. These later recordings were both made in stereo. Some have hailed the 1975 recording, featuring the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, as the finest ever made of the complete ballet.^[13] It also is faithful to the score in employing a boys choir in the Waltz of the Snowflakes. Many other recordings use an adult or mixed choir.

In 1956, the conductor Artur Rodziński made a complete recording of the ballet on stereo master tapes for Westminster Records, but because stereo was not possible on the LP format in 1956, the ballet was issued in stereo on magnetic tape, and only a mono LP set was issued. (Recently, the Rodzinski performance was issued in stereo on CD.)

In 1958, the first stereo LP of the complete ballet, with Ernest Ansermet conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, appeared on Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the U.S.. And with the advent of the stereo era coinciding with the growing popularity of the complete ballet, many other complete recordings of it have been made over the last 30 years. Notable conductors who have done so include Maurice Abravanel, André Previn, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, Richard Bonynge, Semyon Bychkov and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

The soundtrack of the 1977 Baryshnikov television production, conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn, was issued in stereo on a CBS Masterworks 2 LP-set, but it has not appeared on CD. (The 78-minute soundtrack would today fit quite easily onto one CD.) The LP soundtrack recording was, for a time, the only stereo album of the Baryshnikov Nutcracker available, since the show was originally telecast only in mono, and it was not until recently that it began to be telecast with stereo sound.

The first complete recording of the ballet in digital stereo was issued in 1985, on a 2-CD RCA set featuring Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This album originally had no "filler", but it has recently been re-issued on a multi-CD set containing complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

The two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, Nutcracker: The Motion Picture, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, and George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, conducted by David Zinman, have each had soundtrack recordings as well.

Notable albums of excerpts from the ballet, rather than just the usual Nutcracker Suite, were recorded by Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra for Columbia Masterworks, and Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA Victor. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, as well as Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra have also recorded albums of extended excerpts. Neither Ormandy, Reiner, nor Fiedler ever recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music.

Conductors who have recorded only the Nutcracker Suite include such luminaries as Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Mstislav Rostropovich, Herbert von Karajan, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Neville Marriner and James Levine, among many others.