S.S. Belinskaya Clara V.N. Stukolkin Fritz O.O. Preobrazhenskaya Columbine A.A. Gorsky Harlequin M.F. Tistrova Markitanka S.S. Litavkin Recruit in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
Art

The very first Nutcracker. The history of the origin of ballet

S. S. Belinskaya Clara and S. G. Legat The Nutcracker in a scene from the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
S. S. Belinskaya Clara and S. G. Legat The Nutcracker in a scene from the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.

The ballet libretto was based not on the original fairy tale by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (1816), but its arrangement under the title “The Story of the Nutcracker”, made in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas. In his adaptation, Dumas retained only the main plot outline of Hoffmann’s fairy tale, but shifted the emphasis and changed the atmosphere, which made the story more optimistic. Since Petipa did not know German, he used the French version of the tale.

M.M. Petipa and N.N. Yakovlev Elegant Dance from the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
M.M. Petipa and N.N. Yakovlev Elegant Dance from the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
T.A. Stukolkin Drosselmeyer in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
T.A. Stukolkin Drosselmeyer in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.

The stage designers Mikhail Bocharov and Konstantin Ivanov were the authors of the scenery for the ballet. Ivanov succeeded in creating an impressive neo-Renaissance hall for the first act, inspired by the eclectic interiors of the late historicism period. The artist’s Confiturenburg has become a truly magical palace, alluring with its exotic landscapes and outlandish pavilions. Mikhail Bocharov, in turn, painted a poetic winter landscape for the scene of “Waltz of the Snow Flakes”, which delighted the audience, because Bocharov was not only a theater artist, but a talented and very famous landscape painter, an Academician of decorative painting, whose easel works are today in the collections of leading museums of the country the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, the Bakhrushinsky Museum.

The author of the costumes for the ballet was Ivan Vsevolozhsky, who, in addition to managing the Imperial Theaters, successfully realized himself as a theater artist. During his creative activity, he has developed over 1000 costume designs for 25 productions. The costumes he created, always very decorative, varied and inventive, struck with unprecedented, almost blinding luxury. Vsevolozhsky’s imagination was an inexhaustible source.

O.I. Preobrazhenskaya Dragee Fairy and N.G. Legat Prince Whooping Cough in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1900.2
O.I. Preobrazhenskaya Dragee Fairy and N.G. Legat Prince Whooping Cough in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1900.2
O.I. Preobrazhenskaya Dragee Fairy and N.G. Legat Prince Whooping Cough in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1900.
O.I. Preobrazhenskaya Dragee Fairy and N.G. Legat Prince Whooping Cough in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1900.

Throughout the spring of 1891, Tchaikovsky was overcome by gloomy thoughts. In March, the opera The Queen of Spades was suddenly withdrawn from the repertoire, which premiered with great success in December 1890. This was a blow to the composer, who was already upset by the fact that his works were not shown in theaters in Moscow during the winter. Tchaikovsky was often withdrawn, suffered from melancholy, especially when traveling abroad, and began work on The Nutcracker quite late, but was again forced to stop it before a tour of America in early April 1891.

By that time, the composed music not only did not satisfy him, but also brought him to a nervous overstrain. And besides, just before sailing, Tchaikovsky experienced another shock when he learned from the newspapers about the death of his sister Alexandra Ilyinichna. He asked Vsevolozhsky to move the premiere by a year and completed the score by the end of March 1892.

S.S. Belinskaya Clara in a scene from the 2nd scene of the 1st act of the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
S.S. Belinskaya Clara in a scene from the 2nd scene of the 1st act of the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
S.S. Belinskaya Clara V.N. Stukolkin Fritz O.O. Preobrazhenskaya Columbine A.A. Gorsky Harlequin M.F. Tistrova Markitanka S.S. Litavkin Recruit in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
S.S. Belinskaya Clara V.N. Stukolkin Fritz O.O. Preobrazhenskaya Columbine A.A. Gorsky Harlequin M.F. Tistrova Markitanka S.S. Litavkin Recruit in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.

By the time Tchaikovsky had finished composing the music, choreographer Marius Petipa had retired from work on the ballet. The Petipa family at that time was experiencing a terrible tragedy after the discovery of a sarcoma and the subsequent amputation of a leg, in April 1892, Marius Ivanovich’s beloved middle daughter, Evgenia, the most talented of all his children, died.

After the dismissal of Petipa, the choreography was entrusted to Lev Ivanov, who had worked as the second choreographer of the Mariinsky Theater for seven years. In addition to several ballets, he staged Polovtsian dances in Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor and dances in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera-ballet Mlada.

Despite the fact that most of the scenes staged by Ivanov in The Nutcracker were not highly rated by contemporaries, his Snowflake Waltz was a real masterpiece. Creating this choreographic number, Ivanov proceeded from the music, and did not try to subordinate the music to the dance, as Petipa did. This symphonic dance of snowflakes impressed the audience so much that just for the sake of it, many returned to the theater again and again.

Snow Flake Waltz Scene from The Nutcracker. 1892 1900.
Snow Flake Waltz Scene from The Nutcracker. 1892 1900.
Dorina as Snowflake in The Nutcracker. 1892. Theater Museum. A. A. Bakhrushina.
Dorina as Snowflake in The Nutcracker. 1892. Theater Museum. A. A. Bakhrushina.
S.S. Belinskaya Clara and S.G. Legat Prince The Nutcracker in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
S.S. Belinskaya Clara and S.G. Legat Prince The Nutcracker in the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.

The premiere of the ballet took place on 6 (18) December 1892 at the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. Riccardo Drigo conducted that evening and, according to contemporaries, was at his best. So, Clara and Fritz were performed by elementary school students Stanislava Belinskaya and Vasily Stukolkin, and the part of the Nutcracker was performed by high school student Sergei Legat. Antonietta Del-Era and Pavel Gerdt performed the roles of Dragee Fairy and Prince Whooping Cough, Timofey Stukolkin performed Drosselmeyer, Alexander Gorsky, the future author of one of the new editions of The Nutcracker ballet, performed Harlequin.

Despite criticism, The Nutcracker directed by Lev Ivanov existed in the repertoire of the Mariinsky Theater for about 30 years, after which its choreography was irretrievably lost. However, the stage life of the ballet in the 1920s was just beginning, but hardly anyone could have imagined how interesting and eventful it would be. The ballet was staged on all ballet stages of the world by all the leading choreographers and dancers of their time. Today, there are an unimaginable number of interpretations of The Nutcracker, classical and modern, luxurious and concise, successful and not so successful, but each of them is part of the legendary story of the main New Year’s ballet fairy tale.

Choreographer Lev Ivanov.
Choreographer Lev Ivanov.
Children of M.I. Petipa Evgenia Nadezhda Lyubov Victor. 1890 1892.
Children of M.I. Petipa Evgenia Nadezhda Lyubov Victor. 1890 1892.

In 2013, Russian choreographers Vasily Medvedev and Yuri Burlaka made an attempt to reconstruct the 1892 version of The Nutcracker on the stage of the Berlin Opera using archival materials and sketches, and, in my opinion, they were very successful in staging it. Today, a recording of this ballet is available on torrents, but Youtube has the Pas de Deux of the Dragee Fairy and the Prince of Whooping Cough, which I suggest watching in conclusion.

A.V. Sharygin. Costume design for the candy dance for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892. 1935. SPbGMTMI.
A.V. Sharygin. Costume design for the candy dance for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892. 1935. SPbGMTMI.
Emil Wiesel. Sketches of costumes for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892. 1939. P.I. Tchaikovsky
Emil Wiesel. Sketches of costumes for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892. 1939. P.I. Tchaikovsky
Emil Wiesel. Costume designs for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892.
Emil Wiesel. Costume designs for the ballet The Nutcracker. From the original by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1892.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume design for Pansies for the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892. P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume design for Pansies for the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892. P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume designs for Dragee Fairy and Whooping Cough Prince. 1892.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume designs for Dragee Fairy and Whooping Cough Prince. 1892.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume design for Clara and her girlfriends and Fritz and his friends. 1892.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Costume design for Clara and her girlfriends and Fritz and his friends. 1892.
Mikhail Bocharov. Fairy forest. Sketch of scenery for the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
Mikhail Bocharov. Fairy forest. Sketch of scenery for the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892.
Marius Petipa. Choreographers plan for the ballet The Nutcracker. February April 1891 P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Marius Petipa. Choreographers plan for the ballet The Nutcracker. February April 1891 P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Marius Petipa. 1870s. Museum reserve P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Marius Petipa. 1870s. Museum reserve P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. 1890. P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Ivan Vsevolozhsky. 1890. P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky during a trip to St. Petersburg for the premiere of the opera Iolanta and the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892. P.I. Tchaikovsky.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky during a trip to St. Petersburg for the premiere of the opera Iolanta and the ballet The Nutcracker. 1892. P.I. Tchaikovsky.