Every year the melodies of “The Nutcracker” Of Pëtr Il'ich Tsiaikovsky accompany Christmas: we happen to hear them in the most unexpected contexts, but despite the bombardment of festive motifs to which we are subjected every December, the notes of this work are capable of capturing the attention of those who come across them and of arousing a sensation of tenderness, as of a childhood memory.
The reasons for this Christmas enchantment are many and can be explained by retracing the origins of “The Nutcracker”, as well as its countless variations in literature, dance, music and cinema. The opera was commissioned from Tchaikovsky in 1891 by IA Vsevoložskij, director of the Imperial Theaters of Russia, who intended to stage a ballet inspired by the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” Of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmannpublished in 1816; The ballet's most direct source, however, is the adaptation written in 1845 by Alexandre Dumas priest and titled “Story of a nutcracker”.
This detail has a more significant weight than one might expect and reveals, in part, the echo of mystery and anxiety that runs through the story; it is no coincidence that Hoffmann, an exponent of German Romanticism, is considered among the precursors of horror and crime fiction, inspiring, among others, Edgar Allan Poe. The story of “The Nutcracker” begins on one night Christmas Eve full of expectations, at the home of the Stahlbaum family; the little brothers Fritz and Marie they receive many beautiful gifts from their parents and godfather, the Doctor Drosselmeierwho entrusts Marie with a wooden nutcracker, depicting a toy soldier. The bully Fritz breaks the precious object and the little girl goes to sleep with her heart swollen with sadness: to distract her, the boy arrives in the bedroom. King of the mice, a horrible rat with seven heads and seven crownsleading an army of rodents in search of the Nutcracker; the latter, transformed into a young general in the flesh, in turn leads an army of toy soldiers and animated puppets, who give a strenuous battle to the mice.
The story develops between disturbing transformations, lethal sword fights, bloody deaths due to trampling and adventurous journeys in fantastic worlds; Dumas, for his part, tones down the dramatic and bloody tones of the story and his version, delicate, but also more inconsistent on a narrative level, is inspired by suite by Tchaikovsky, who works following the instructions of the choreographers Marius Petipa e Lev Ivanov. “The Nutcracker” was performed for the first time in St. Petersburg in December 1892; although the first staging was not immediately successful, the story of Clara -this is the name of the little girl protagonist in the ballet- is destined to be performed in theaters all over the world.
The two acts of the suite, with the different dances e valzer which characterize it, in fact become part of the imagination thanks to the various installations created, from Bol'šoj to Mosca al Sadler’s Wells Theatre di Londonhome of the European “premiere”, up to the version revisited by George BalanchineRussian dancer and choreographer, founder of New York City Balletwhich first performed at the New York State Theater in Manhattan in 1954; Meanwhile, the popularity of the work is growing among the general public also thanks to the animated film “Fantasia“, masterpiece Disney dated 1940, in which you can listen to the Chinese dancethe Arabic dance, the Dance of the whistles and the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairyaccompanied by some delightful animated sequences that have remained engraved in the memory of many different generations.
Among the film versions, it is particularly interesting “George Balanchine: The Nutcracker” Of Emile Ardolinodirector of “Dirty Dancing” and “Sister Act”, who in 1993 made a film based on the ballet by the New York City Ballet, with Macaulay Culkin in the role of the Nutcracker; the legendary protagonist of “Mom, I missed the plane”, in fact, as a child he studied in the school founded by Balanchine. The most recent adaptation for the big screen dates back to 2018 and stands out for the sumptuousness of its sets and costumes: “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms”, directed by Lasse Hallström e Joe Johnstonrepresents a free reinterpretation of the original, but the young Clara (Mackenzie Foy) is outlined with a touch of intelligence, resourcefulness and modernity that goes well with the adventurous spirit of Hoffmann's story; also in the cast Keira Knightley -Sugar Sugar Fairy-, e Morgan Freeman -Drosselmeier-.
The films inspired by this immortal work are certainly numerous, including the unfortunate “The Nutcracker in 3D” Of Andrei Konchalovskyor the animated film “Barbie and the Nutcracker”, but if this Christmas you want to rediscover Marie's adventures, the advice is to rely on the original pages of Hoffmann's story, perhaps accompanied by the splendid illustrations by Roberto Innocenti in the edition published by La Margherita in 2015; again, the 2022 Rizzoli edition, illustrated by Jacopo Bruno, and the one released in 2024 for BUR deluxe embellished with the graphic interpretation of the designer Sanna Annukka.
Accompanying the reading, of course, are the notes of Pëtr Il'ič Tchaikovsky… and it will immediately be Christmas, once again.
