Ballet in two acts by Pyotr I’ič Tchaikovsky, from the short story Nußknacker und Mausekönig by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
Main characters and performers:
Marie
Elya Aslanyan (15.00)
Anahit Vasilyan (20.00)
Prince
Andrei Gukasian (15.00)
Yura Martirosian (20.00)
Drosselmeyer
Sevak Avetisyan (15.00)
Grigor Grigoryan (20.00)
Fairy
Mariam Garajyan (15.00)
Tatevik Bolshikyan (20.00)
Nutcracker
Garegin Babelyan (15.00)
Vahe Babajanyan (20.00)
Mouse King
Artashes Hakobyan (15.00)
Armen Zakaryan (20.00)
Armenian National Ballet
Conductor
Karen Durgaryan
Choreography
Georgy Kovtun from Marius Petipa
Scenes and costumes
Vjačeslav Okunev
Orchestra, Children’s Chorus and Technicians of the Opera Carlo Felice Genova
Master of the Children’s Choir Gino Tanasini
Il balletto in breve
di Ludovica Gelpi
The story of The Nutcracker -one of the most frequently performed ballet titles in theaters around the world-began in 1890, when the director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg Ivan Vsevoložsky commissioned Tchaikovsky, fresh from the success of Sleeping Beauty, to stage a double production of opera and ballet. The opera in question was to be Iolanta, while E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story Nußknacker und Mausekönig (1816) was considered for the ballet. Tchaikovsky worked with choreographer Marius Petipa on a lighter adaptation of Hoffman’s story, itself too complex and only apparently aimed at a young audience, to achieve a more linear development. In this regard they also took their cue from the adaptation that Alexandre Dumas had made of the tale in French. The plot thus follows the magical adventure of a little girl, Marie (in some versions Clara), and the nutcracker puppet that is given to her at the Christmas party. In the middle of the night, the Nutcracker comes to life; together with him, Marie defeats the Mouse King and his hosts; the Nutcracker transforms into a Prince and accompanies Marie through a snowy forest to the Candy Kingdom, where both are welcomed by the Sugarplum Fairy with several exotic and colorful dances. Despite the simplified development of the story, the composer encountered quite a few difficulties in the realization of the ballet, for personal reasons but also because of the difficulty of finding an effective language in rendering such a profound and pure childlike expression. An important turning point was the decision to integrate into the orchestral ensemble some toy-instruments, such as a trumpet, drums and rattles, and the celesta, an instrument that Tchaikovsky had recently discovered and decided to employ to introduce the characters of the Sugarplum Fairy (a choice that may seem obvious today, but which was unusual at the time and proved to be highly effective). When Petipa fell ill, production of the ballet passed into the hands of Lev Ivanov, who, in addition to having already collaborated with Petipa and Tchaikovsky on The Sleeping Beauty, also had a marked musical talent. By 1892 the orchestration of the ballet was almost complete, so much so that a first version in the form of an orchestral suite (consisting of the overture and eight numbers) was performed in St. Petersburg on March 19 to warm acclaim. On December 18, 1892, The Nutcracker was staged for the first time at the Mariinsky Theater.
There is an ineffable cipher that profoundly defines a composer’s style; Tchaikovsky’s music is a case in point, and in this cipher the dimension of the fairy-tale, even veiled by a special form of melancholy, is often present. The composer recounts in music the building blocks of the Nutcracker‘s dramaturgy-the setting at first domestic, then mysterious and fairy-tale-like, the fantasy world of the games that come to life, the spontaneous and dreamy filter of Marie’s gaze that amplifies awe and wonder. From number to number we proceed through a kaleidoscope of nuances and expressions varied but all recognizable in the composer’s unmistakable style. The structure of the ballet, which particularly in the second act is studded with a series of dances inspired by different folk traditions and well characterized (thus having no way for the musical discourse to extend and develop according to the spaces typical of symphonic music), allowed Tchaikovsky to focus on the specific features of each number with a more direct and immediate language, achieving a result with a unique evocative scope.
