Tchaikovsky's Christmas ballet flopped in 1892, then ruled December
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is Tchaikovsky's 1892 two-act ballet-féerie on Hoffmann's tale via Dumas, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. It shared its 18 December 1892 Mariinsky premiere in Saint Petersburg with the opera Iolanta. Early reviews were cool; North American December runs later made it a box-office engine.
After Sleeping Beauty's success in 1890, Imperial Theatres director Ivan Vsevolozhsky ordered a double bill pairing a new opera with a ballet-féerie. Petipa supplied extremely detailed tempo and bar-count instructions for each number; work paused briefly when Tchaikovsky visited America to conduct at Carnegie Hall's opening. The score's celesta colors, already tried in his much less-known Voyevoda, became a trademark—especially for the Sugar Plum Fairy's music.
Opening-night verdicts split: some admired Antoinetta Dell'Era's pointe as Sugar Plum, others found the mouse battle chaotic and children too prominent, and critics called the libretto lopsided or unfaithful to Hoffmann. Alexandre Benois complained of disorderly pushing in the fight. Alexander Gorsky's 1919 staging cut the Sugar Plum couple and gave their dances to adult Clara and the Prince. England saw a complete Petipa-based staging by Nicholas Sergeyev in 1934; New York City Ballet began annual Balanchine Nutcrackers in 1954, with Maria Tallchief's Sugar Plum aiding the craze.
Since the late 1960s the ballet has been a seasonal staple, especially in North America, where major companies draw about forty percent of yearly ticket income from it. Synopses still move from a Nuremberg Christmas party and Drosselmeyer's wooden doll through the midnight mouse battle into the Land of Sweets' Spanish chocolate, Arabian coffee, Chinese tea, and Russian candy-cane divertissements—an 1892 curiosity turned into December infrastructure.
Source: The Nutcracker
