The Nutcracker, is a fairy-ballet in two acts, three tableaux, by Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composed in 1891–1892, and based on The Nutcracker and the
Mouse King, a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816).
Presented with one interval.
SYNOPSIS
Act I
Scene 1. Counsellor Stahlbaumґs
Kitchen
The ballet begins in the kitchen of Counsellor Stahlbaumґs
house, where preparations for the holiday dinner are underway. Before the
stunned kitchen maids sausage-people, a human soup tureen, and a platter with a
boarґs head stride in on human legs. All these metamorphoses dissipate when
these apparitions turn out to be cooks carrying delicacies on their
shoulders.
As the scene continues, the world of the kitchen acquires an even
more Hoffmannesque character. A cook attempting to cut a slice of cheese is
surprised to discover a naughty little rat inside the cheese. The startled rat
dashes out between the cookґs legs and heads for the kitchen, creating panic and
havoc among the kitchen staff who then, to their horror, realize that one of the
sous-chefs is also a rat in disguise.
Counsellor and Mrs. Stahlbaum come to
the kitchen with their children Masha and Fritz, who hope for a taste. The
favorite child, Fritz, gets a sweet, while Masha is rudely pushed aside.
The
staff and members of the Stahlbaum family leave the kitchen and rat hooligans of
all ages emerge from every nook and cranny and set to feasting. In the heat of
the festivities the Rat Cardinal Kryselieu and Mashaґs godfather Drosselmeyer
appear, Drosselmeyer with his young nephew the Nutcracker.
Intermedia. The Dressing Room
Counsellor Stahlbaum and his wife
come to their dressing room to dress for the Christmas party, followed by their
children.
As the adults preen in front of their respective mirrors – the
Counsellorґs convex mirror reflects everything wider, while Mrs. Stahlbaumґs
concave mirror stretches the reflection vertically – servants propose garment
after garment. The parents find nothing to their liking, and settle on the
house-coats they are already wearing. The spoiled Fritz gets a Napoleonic hat to
wear, while Masha, through whose eyes we see the closet, enormous, foreboding,
dark, is once again pushed aside.
Scene 2. The Christmas Party
The Stahlbaumґs guests gather for
Christmas dinner. Mashaґs godfather Drosselmeyer arrives. He presents his
automatic dolls to the assembled company: The Recruit and his Canteen Girl and
two Cossacks. Drosselmeyer gives Grandfather Stahlbaum an enormous pipe, Fritz a
miniature bridge for toy soldiers.
Masha is left with the toy no one wants,
the Nutcracker. She is charmed by the Nutcrackerґs agility cracking nuts, and
she senses that he is not just a toy. The guests retire to the table at the back
of the room for dinner.
Grandfather and his Bonapartist friend observe the
festivities from their chairs, then Grandfather decides to lead a dance. He
dances vigorously and becomes so carried away that he loses one of his shoes in
the process.
Intermedia I. The Wine Cellar: The Guests Depart
After the party,
the guests file out through the wine cellar into the snowy night. The last to
leave is Drosselmeyer, holding aloft a platter with the boarґs head from dinner,
licked clean to the bone.
Intermedia II. The Transformation
After the guests have left and
the household has retired for the night, Masha slips back to the parlor to see
the Nutcracker. In the darkness she sees rats in ball gowns. Frightened, she
faints. The rats disappear. The parlor clock strikes midnight. The
transformation begins.
Scene 3. The Battle
When Masha awakens from her fainting spell,
she sees that the parlor has become enormously large, so large that she is the
size of a toy. She hears fanfares. Drosselmeyer swings on the pendulum of the
grandfather clock. Masha watches in terror as the rat army rallies before the
Rat Emperor. The army is commanded by a Rat Napoleon, quite reminiscent of her
spoiled brother Fritz. The Nutcrackerґs soldiers appear, and the battle begins.
The Rat Emperor forgets his pride and slips out of his mantle, which, as it
turns out, is nothing but a false carcass.
In his haste to escape danger, the
Emperor leaves the royal mantle and six of his terrifying heads behind and
dashes for cover in Drosselmeyerґs wig, along with the Queen and their two small
children. The Crown Prince remains in the fray, battling the Nutcracker.
The
battle rages. Masha is so alarmed by the fighting that she hides in
Grandfatherґs shoe.
The Nutcracker fights with the Crown Prince one on
one.
Masha manages to deal the Crown Prince a blow to the head with her own
shoe, taking advantage of the height of her perch.
The Crown Prince is
stunned for a moment, and the Nutcracker deals him a final blow with his sword.
The wounded Prince accepts defeat, gallantly saluting Masha. The Rat Emperor
gives Masha a royal mantle. Masha and the Nutcracker mount the shoe and ascend
into the branches of the tree.
PANORAMA
Masha and the Nutcracker travel in Grandfatherґs shoe
through the night sky, above the rooftops of the sleeping town. The only lighted
window is in the sweets shop Confiturenburg.
Scene 4. The Snowstorm
Snow begins to fall. Masha and the
Nutcracker are forced to make a stop in their journey. They alight in an
abandoned churchyard where strange cocoons hang from the trees. Snowflakes, led
by their Queen, surround Masha. Masha dances with them. The dance gets faster
and faster, becoming a real blizzard that could cost Masha her life. The
Nutcracker rescues her, and Drosselmeyer stops the storm.
Act II
Scene 1. Confiturenburg, The Sweets Shop
Masha and the Nutcracker
finally arrive in Confiturenburg, seen through the window of the sweets shop. It
is filled with candies and pastries and with sweets-loving flies and bees;
doctors ready to pull rotten teeth or cure a sick stomach wander about. Masha
and the Nutcracker are greeted by the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcrackerґs four
sisters. Suddenly the Fly-Person attacks the Nutcracker, who successfully fights
him off.
The inhabitants of Confiturenburg present dances for Masha and the
Nutcracker. Masha is stunned by the extraordinary spectacle. In a burst of
feeling she runs to the Nutcracker and kisses him. Her kiss breaks the spell and
the Nutcracker is transformed into a Prince. Their wedding waltz begins.
Intermedia. Outside the Shop
On the wintry street outside
Confiturenburg stands a distraught Drosselmeyer. The window is boarded up, and
light comes through the cracks between the planks. Drosselmeyer tries
desperately to see what is happening within.
FINALE