Home
Ballet
Talk
Magazines
Specials
Reviews
Ballets
Dancers
Companies
Studio
Shop
Links
Subscribe
"SOME KIND OF FRAGILE AND SUGARY NUTCRACKER"The Nutcracker was premiered on December 18, 1892 at the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. According to the Russian/Julian calendar, this date was December 6, because the Julian calendar lagged the western European by twelve days at this point in history. December 6 is St. Nicholas Day, a day of significance in Russia because St. Nicholas is one of the patron saints of the nation, and also because it marks the beginning of the Christmas season there, which ends on Orthodox Christmas, January 6.
With the delights that many productions of this classic work produce today, it is difficult for us to imagine that the first production was not a success. Many of the critics of the day, and the letters to the theater journals find the work weak, not suited to treatment by an august institution like the Maryinsky, and even not ballet! The 1892 audience had difficulty in reconciling the Act I narrative with the Act II divertissement, as many do today. Many thought that the music overpowered the slender subject. Some felt that the serious opera and the "ballet-féerie" were a bad mismatch. Some balletomanes were disappointed that the ballerina danced only in the divertissement.
Discrepancies in the libretto, and the scenario for the composer, and the choreographic notation and the audience's accounts of what they saw lead historians to believe that there may have been a lot of scene-doctoring during the life of the first production for so many different things to have been said to have been going on. In general, though, the production followed the libretto, and there are some particulars to be fleshed out and questions answered from other articles under this heading, so an overview of the show will not be a total redundancy. Act I.
From curtain's rise, there was an emphasis on narrative. Detailed conversations were in progress:
Silberhaus(to a servant): Is the Christmas tree ready yet?
Servant: No, not yet, but I will tell you when it is.
Silberhaus(to his wife): Imagine that, the tree isn't ready!
And on the entrance of the guests:
Silberhaus(spotting a difficult guest, to his wife): You invited HER?
Mrs. S.: No, but she came anyway; what can you do about it, so what?But with the beginning of the march, a curious style of integration of mime and dance starts to happen, which is a hallmark of the ballet. Pantomimed conversations proceed almost seamlessly into academic steps and back again. Dancing and storytelling are woven together in a very sophisticated way, advancing the narrative using classical vocabulary in ways that were not employed again for many years, although Ivanov's way is not so interior as, say, Tudor's.
One point of departure from the scenario follows the march. It was here that Petipa had originally wanted a suite of national dances, Chinese, Spanish, Italian (recycled as the male variation in the grand pas de deux), a Trepak, a Jig, and as a finale-a cancan! As it ended up, it merely went into a galop for the children with the entrance of additional guests, this time dressed in costumes. A marginal note in the scenario may mean that Petipa suggested to Tchaikovsky that he incorporate an 18th-century French song "Bon Voyage, cher Dumolet" into this part of the score. He did this prompting again in Act II.
There is a lot of by-play, including some business with a snuffbox and the President and Drosselmeyer sharing a pinch just after his entrance, but the matter of the strange boxes for the mechanical dolls is unclear, as is the dancing that followed. Interestingly, the first dance in the little divertissement is for the soldier and the vivandière, and the second, minor mode, is for Columbine and Harlequin, obviously more in a Petrouchka vein than is presently seen. Petipa had wanted a pair of devils here, emerging from a giant snuffbox, but cooler heads censored the tobacco advertisement!
The action proceeds as in the libretto until after the Nutcracker has broken, and then it becomes difficult to tell what was going on while Clara is trying to shush the boys while her beloved toy recovers, but one thing does seem clear--she dances a lullaby. Stanislava Belinskaya was the original Clara, and a student in the Maryinsky School, which brings a second hallmark of the original production: Student dancers in appropriate parts, dancing a simple vocabulary with incompletely-finished technique.
After the Grossvater dance and the exit of all the guests and family, the choreographic notation of Act I ends until the Waltz of the Snowflakes, but the blocking of the battle does show up-in the score! The concertmaster or perhaps Riccardo Drigo, the conductor himself, notated in the rehearsal score where the various elements of toy soldiery enter the fray.
By the time we get to the "snow scene," we are faced with two different notations of the choreography, possibly different, but possibly just reflecting the subjective nature of Stepanov notation, and the personal differences of different notators. One thing seems plain, though, from both versions-these are Russian snowflakes! They waltz in groups of three, much the same way that composer Igor Stravinsky and two of his Russian friends used to do when they got drunk together in Paris in the '20s!
ACT II
The action in Act II has to get over expeditiously, so that the divertissement may proceed, but-a transition must be made, so that there is a reason to present the entertainment at all. The opening of the scene was probably a procession, an entrée, in the 18th century féerie tradition.
At the bell-like sound of the celesta, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier, Prince Coqueluche enter and perform a short bit of double work, supported by a few coryphees, and true to the narrative style of Act I, she begins mimed instructions to her court to prepare for the arrival of the ruling Prince. (A narrative note here-the Sugar Plum Fairy may be an idealized parent, but she stands in, in this production, for Princess Pirlipata in the Hoffman/Dumas story, who had thrown the poor Nutcracker [named Nathaniel Drosselmeyer] out of her kingdom when he became hideously ugly after having rescued her from a curse. Now that the curse is totally broken, he is welcome back to take his rightful place as the ruler of the Kingdom of Sweets.)
There is no substantive notation until the beginning of the Spanish dance, which Ivanov said he couldn't understand musically. A rather odd observation, as the dance is nothing but a Jota and its form is very simple. This dance was for a lead couple and at least two others.
The Arabian dance was likewise shorthanded in notation, and may have been simply for a soloist alone for most of it, who then is joined by a cavalier at the last moment. Other dancers are indicated, but they are simple spots on the stage and the instructions "bow", "kneel", and so forth appear in their places from time to time-they may have been students.
There are at least two ways that the notation presents the Chinese dance, and later versions including Porcelain Princesses and a Mandarin (interpolated into Diaghilev's production of Sleeping Beauty) and a surviving example said to resemble a "pantomime version of Aladdin" and featuring a phoo dog-nobody seems absolutely sure what showed up on the first night, but it must not have stayed that way!
The Dance of the Mirliton-Flutes is curiouser and curiouser. People today think they are panpipes, but Petipa's instructions direct that they carry "little flutes made of reed, stopped at either end with gold-beater's skin." This description sounds like some sort of fancy stop-flute, and indeed it is. The dictionary definition for "mirliton" is "kazoo". That would explain the oddly buzzing bass line in the second theme of this dance. Choreographically, the dance contained a lot of little piqué point work and close-to-the-ground matter with the occasional pirouettes en demi-pointe thrown in. Not only is gentle deference made in the direction of Denmark (Bournonville ballets were known for "single pirouette on point, doubles on half"), thereby identifying the sweet shepherdesses as marzipan, the favorite confection of Denmark, but there is now a place for even the noisemakers at the party.
The Russian dance-the Trepak that shopping malls like to play over and over again at Christmas season to keep the crowd in a hurry-up mood - was danced by a character artist of the Maryinsky named Alexander Shirayev, and was supported by student dancers. All were dressed as jesters-a surviving photograph shows that at least Shirayev carried a hoop, which another dancer says he jumped through "adroitly."
Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles were a recycled item from an earlier ballet by Petipa entitled The Wilful Wife. Petipa left a note to Tchaikovsky that she was to enter to the French tune "Girofle'-Girofla" and the oompah tune the children dance was to be "Cadet Rouselle". The endearing old lady was played by a jolly old Mr. Yakovlev, a mime.
The Waltz of the Flowers has been supposed to have been choreographically similar to the Act I valse villageoise in Sleeping Beauty, which depended heavily on props. Sure enough, the "cake flowers" were carrying garlands of angelica, an herb used to decorate cakes.
The pas de deux and its succeeding variations provides us with some insight into what the original ballerina and her partner must have been like, but we cannot be sure, as the surviving notated parts of the opening period of the dance seem not to relate to the second period, and they are in different hands - second cast, second choreography? And the survival examples "after Ivanov" form an uneasy truce with both written records. The really remarkable thing in the original pas de deux came toward the end, when the ballerina went to an upstage corner where she stood on point on the end of a long chiffon scarf her cavalier had laid down for her and then, standing perfectly still, she was pulled across the stage on the scarf, as she is lighter than a feather! (Actually, they had a little wagon called a reika on a track and Gerdt pulled on the scarf while stagehands, usually soldiers, moved Dell'Era across the stage on the wagon from underneath the stage.) There is a surviving photograph of this moment showing the second-cast Sugar Plum Fairy, Varvara Nikitina, and Gerdt.
The Grand Coda, one of the most rumbustious waltzes Tchaikovsky ever wrote, reintroduces all the corps and soloists of the divertissement in their turns, then the principals, entering on the telltale celesta cue. The entire company, including Clara and the Prince, dance together until the Apotheosis (a hive of bees) begins.