The Nutcracker

A German writer, E. T. A. Hoffmann, published the tale "Nussknacker und Mausekönig", "Nutcracker and Mouse King", in 1816, in a book of children’s stories.^1,2 In it a girl named Marie gets a nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve. At night the toys come alive, and the nutcracker leads them against the seven-headed Mouse King. In the end the doll turns into a prince.¹

The French author Alexandre Dumas retold the tale in 1844, and the ballet’s story was built on his version.^2,1 Tchaikovsky’s ballet opened at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia, in December 1892. By the Russian calendar of that day it was December 6, which is December 18 on ours.³ The dances are credited to Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Petipa planned them, but he fell ill and Ivanov finished the work.^2,3

The first night was not a big hit. Tchaikovsky died in 1893 and never saw how famous the ballet would become.^2,4 The first full Nutcracker in the United States was by the San Francisco Ballet on Christmas Eve 1944. George Balanchine’s version for the New York City Ballet opened in 1954, and television showings in the late 1950s helped make it a yearly Christmas habit.^2,4

Wooden nutcracker figures come from the Ore Mountains of Germany, where families carved and turned toys because there was little other work in winter. Seiffen is the best-known toy town there.^5,6 Wilhelm Füchtner of Seiffen is called the father of the nutcracker. In the early 1870s he began making many nutcrackers of one design on a lathe, and his family still has a workshop in Seiffen.^5,7,8