The Nutcracker (complete ballet)

Hybrid/SACD - playable on any compact disc player
DSD recorded

"Christmas came early today when I received this from jpc. I suspect this is the Nutcracker Ballet by which all others will be judged - past and future. It comes from the Boshoi Theatre orchestra, and chorus, and has that element of "the source" which is beyond question. Performed with such professionalism and sense of place which immediately shows, "this is it". I absolutely loved it. Nothing I have, and I have several, comes close. I only hope this is the start of a Ballet Series from Pentatone featuring the Boshoi. I will buy every one."
(SA-CD.Net)

During a journey through Italy in 1882, Peter Tchaikovsky received a parcel in the post from a friend containing a book with the fairy tale Nutcracker and the Mouse King. This was, however, in the French adaptation Histoire d'un casse-noisette, which Alexandre Dumas senior had published in 1844. The original by the German author E.T.A. Hoffmann was published at Christmastime in 1816, and was included at the time in the collection Die Serapionsbrüder. A contemporary review stated that the text was hardly a fairy tale, "but the rogue only takes on the mask of the child, in order to make fun of decent people by means of words and gestures in an even more amusing manner". This story depicts "a complete world with all its fantastic objects, the way this presents itself to the fearful, innocent and yet greedy soul of a child (of the girl Marie of noble birth) in a delightful dream": i.e. as a battle of the good (the dolls and toys) against the evil (the mice in the girl's bedroom) in a fantastic Kingdom of Sweets, to which Marie is transported through mysterious doors by the Nutcracker, her Christmas present. There, Marie recognizes him to be the longed-for fairy-tale prince of her teenage dreams, who comes to her rescue. Thus the hidden wishes of real life are granted in her dream.

The story did not immediately fire Peter Tchaikovsky with enthusiasm. He laid it aside for some time until December 1890, when he received a commission from Prince Ivan Vsevolojsky, director of the Imperial Theatres in Russia, to write the opera Iolanthe together with a ballet in two acts. Marius Petipa - a self-confident choreographer and dancer from France who was attached to the Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg - forced the decision for a ballet based on The Nutcracker. Marius Petipa had already worked successfully with Ivan Vsevolojsky, choreographing the other two fairy-tale ballets Swan Lake (1876) and Sleeping Beauty (1889): "This patron cum director managed to attract such a major expert as the Russian composer - the genius Tchaikovsky - for this genre," thus Marius Petipa noted in his memoirs with narcissistic pride. And again: "The choreography and staging of a major ballet form an extremely important undertaking: after deciding on the scenario or programme, one has to think most precisely about the conception of each single character. And once the work on the expression and subject of the ballet has been completed, the corresponding dances, steps and variations need to be thought up, choreographed and adapted to the music. However, this work becomes a true pleasure, when one has as a director such a knowledgeable and talented adviser as Mr. Vsevolojsky, and can work with such a brilliant composer as Tchaikovsky."

With regard to the Nutcracker, however, the pleasure was entirely one-sided, as Marius Petipa did not actually adapt the choreography to the music. In fact, he confronted Peter Tchaikovsky with a highly detailed plan, in which he laid down the order of the scenes and the characters of the dances - he even stipulated the time signatures and the duration of the music. Therefore, Tchaikovsky was left with the task of coming up with the music for this completed concept, which in effect meant a limitation of his artistic freedom and, as such, a devaluation of his professional skill. He frequently complained about this, and felt that his creativity was being blocked, particularly since he was being pressured to complete the score for the coming season: "Both the opera and the ballet have become fiendish nightmares for me, so unbearable, that I do not have the strength to describe them. As far as I can remember, I have never before, during any phase in my life, felt as miserable as I do now," thus he confided in his brother Modest.

Nevertheless, he sullenly continued to work. For that reason most likely, he was at first dissatisfied with the composition, which he completed in the summer of 1891. As he wrote, it was of "incomparably less value than Sleeping Beauty - in this respect, I have not the slightest doubt". However, he was to radically revise this judgement later on, in a letter to his brother Modest: "The ballet is evidently extremely good. Naturally, you know from experience that composers tend to underestimate their works during the period of gestation". One of the reasons for Peter Tchaikovsky managing to surmount his creative crisis was his discovery of the celesta: an instrument with a keyboard, whereby the hammers hit steel plates instead of strings, with wooden resonators underneath, producing delicate, clear, bell-like, or - to put it in Tchaikovsky's words - "heavenly sweet" sounds. In June 1891, he had his publisher Peter Jürgenson order a celesta for him, in order to use the instrument for the dance of the Sugarplum Fairy and others. Thus, he beat all his fellow composers, becoming the first to use this instrument in the history of Russian music.

However, the première of the entire ballet was delayed. Unexpectedly, a concert with the previously compiled Nutcracker Suite - which took place on March 7, 1892 in St. Petersburg, with Tchaikovsky himself conducting - met with a spectacular response: "It went down so well with the audience, that the orchestra had to repeat almost every single movement," thus wrote violinist Ivan Lipayev.
It was not until December 18, 1892 that the première of the entire ballet, together with the opera Iolanthe, took place in St. Petersburg. However, it was not a great success, as Marius Petipa became ill during rehearsals, and the choreography passed into the hands of his assistant, which did not improve the quality. Furthermore, the audience was dissatisfied with the many roles for children; and the ballerina in the role of the Sugarplum Fairy, who danced the "grand pas de deux" with the Prince in the second act, turned out to be a disappointment.
Nevertheless, eight years later, The Nutcracker was part of the standard repertoire in Russia. In western Europe, the sugar-sweet, fairy-tale ballet soon also became a favourite among audiences, and now no-one recalls the "fiendish nightmares" of the composer Peter Tchaikovsky.