94 Fun Facts About The Nutcracker

Which 1940 Disney film set Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite to dancing mushrooms, fairies and fish?

Fantasia. Its Nutcracker sequence drops the suite's overture and march, and its animator is said to have modelled the dancing mushrooms on the Three Stooges.

Who danced the children's roles at The Nutcracker's 1892 premiere?

Students of the company's ballet school took the children's parts, and not until a Moscow staging of 1919 did the heroine first go to an adult dancer.

At which theatre was The Nutcracker first performed in 1892?

The Imperial Mariinsky Theatre staged it for the tsar's ballet company, whose veteran ballet master Marius Petipa planned every scene and then had to leave the steps to his assistant.

Which choreographer took over The Nutcracker when Marius Petipa fell ill?

Lev Ivanov, Petipa's longtime assistant, was put in charge by the director of the Imperial Theatres when illness took the older man out of the production in 1892.

The Nutcracker's plot comes from an 1844 French adaptation by which writer?

Alexandre Dumas published his lighter French retelling in 1844, and Petipa's libretto followed the Dumas version rather than the German original.

Who wrote the 1816 German tale from which The Nutcracker ultimately derives?

E. T. A. Hoffmann published Nussknacker und Mausekönig in Berlin in 1816 in a book of children's stories; in his telling the toy carries the girl off to a kingdom of dolls.

What is The Nutcracker's heroine called in the original German tale?

Marie Stahlbaum is the girl in the original tale; the French retelling renamed her family Silberhaus, and the name most ballets give her belongs in the original to one of Marie's dolls.

What are Drosselmeier's occupations in the original Nutcracker tale?

Judge, clockmaker and inventor: the children's godfather sits on a high court, yet he turns up each Christmas with clockwork marvels he has built himself, such as a castle full of moving figures.

How many heads does the Mouse King have in the original Nutcracker tale?

Seven heads sit on the Mouse King in the 1816 tale; he inherits a grudge from his mother, the mouse queen whose curse turned a young man into the nutcracker.

Mark Morris's 1991 take on The Nutcracker is named after which story-within-a-story that most ballets cut?

The Hard Nut. The inner tale explains how the nutcracker came to be cursed, and Morris put it back in a staging styled after the comic-book artist Charles Burns.

Which instrument gives the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy its famous sound?

The celesta was a brand-new find: Tchaikovsky came across it in Paris, wrote home about its 'divinely wonderful sound' and had his publisher order one for 1,200 francs.

Who invented the bell-toned keyboard heard in the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance, and when?

Auguste Mustel in 1886 patented the instrument in Paris, where his family built harmoniums; Tchaikovsky heard it there in 1891 and ordered one through his publisher.

How does the keyboard heard in the Sugar Plum Fairy's dance produce its sound?

Hammers strike metal plates, each hung over a wooden resonator that mellows the ring, so the instrument is played just like a piano.

Which composer named the Sugar Plum Fairy's keyboard instrument in a 1936 work's title?

Béla Bartók wrote the piece in 1936 for the conductor Paul Sacher's chamber orchestra in Basel, and its eerie slow movement later turned up in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

In many stagings of The Nutcracker, the shepherdesses of the Dance of the Reed Flutes represent which confection?

Marzipan. British viewers of the 1970s knew the tune from a Cadbury advert, in which the humorist Frank Muir sang 'Everyone's a Fruit and Nut Case' to it.

In The Nutcracker's Act II, which country does the chocolate dance represent?

Spain is the chocolate dance's country, a brisk number with castanets, because chocolate first reached Europe through Spain's colonies in the Americas.

Which US city's ballet company staged America's first full-length Nutcracker on Christmas Eve 1944?

San Francisco. Willam Christensen staged it, and the company went on to make the ballet a yearly tradition, a decade before New York's more famous version arrived.

How was the first performance of The Nutcracker received in 1892?

It was not deemed a success: critics attacked the libretto and the pairing of a ballet with an opera, though the Sugar Plum Fairy's dancer is said to have taken five curtain calls.

Whose 1954 staging turned The Nutcracker into an American Christmas institution?

George Balanchine's staging opened at New York City Ballet in February 1954, quickly became the company's biggest box-office success and settled in as an annual fixture.

Which number closes Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite?

Waltz of the Flowers ends the suite of eight numbers, which the composer conducted in concert in March 1892, nine months before the ballet itself reached the stage.

Which nickname belongs to Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, which he conducted nine days before his death?

Pathétique. He led its first performance in October 1893, a year after The Nutcracker opened, and the symphony's dying-away finale later fed the rumours about how he died.

What is Tchaikovsky's death in 1893 usually attributed to?

Cholera from unboiled water is the official account: during an epidemic he is said to have drunk a glass of it at a restaurant, and he died days later aged 53, though suicide theories soon surfaced.

Which was the first of Tchaikovsky's three ballets?

Swan Lake opened in Moscow in 1877, but the version usually danced today was revised after the composer's death for an 1895 revival.

What was unusual about Tchaikovsky's thirteen-year friendship with his patron Nadezhda von Meck?

They agreed never to meet. The railway tycoon's widow paid him 6,000 roubles a year, enough to let him give up teaching, and the two exchanged more than 1,200 letters.

Which orchestral piece with cannon fire is among Tchaikovsky's best-known works?

The 1812 Overture was a commission he called 'very loud and noisy' and written without love; in America it became a Fourth of July favourite after a 1974 Boston Pops concert.

Which mountain range on the German-Czech border is the traditional home of carved nutcracker dolls?

The Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains, turned to carving wooden toys when its mines declined, and nutcrackers became one of its best-known Christmas exports.

Traditional German nutcracker dolls are best known for depicting which figures?

Kings and soldiers were on show from German carvers by 1800; the popular explanation is that villagers enjoyed making figures of authority do the humble work of cracking their nuts.

How did the dolls become popular in America?

Soldiers brought them home after the Second World War from postings in Germany, and the ballet's rise as an American Christmas fixture in the 1950s cemented the craze.

Which kingdom does the Sugar Plum Fairy rule in Act II of The Nutcracker?

The Land of Sweets is where she reigns in the Prince's place until his return, and where she thanks the girl who saved him with a pageant of dancing treats.

Which Tchaikovsky work used the Sugar Plum Fairy's bell-toned keyboard before the ballet did?

The Voyevoda, a symphonic ballad premiered in Moscow in November 1891, was his first score to use the new keyboard; he tore up the manuscript after the concert.

Where did Tchaikovsky study composition?

The Saint Petersburg Conservatory opened in 1862 with Tchaikovsky among its first students; he graduated in 1865 and then moved to Moscow to teach.

In The Nutcracker, the Waltz of the Snowflakes adds which unusual sound to the orchestra?

A wordless choir joins the orchestra; the score asks for young voices, though many recordings use adult or mixed choirs instead.

Which dancer plays the Ballerina Princess in Disney's 2018 film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms?

Misty Copeland first drew notice as a teenager dancing the lead in a school Nutcracker after only eight months of ballet lessons; by 2018 she was a principal at American Ballet Theatre.

Which country does the tea dance represent in Act II of The Nutcracker?

China is the tea dance's country: the Sugar Plum Fairy lays on a celebration of delicacies from around the world, and each treat arrives with a national dance of its own.

Tchaikovsky's score labels the Trepak, danced by candy canes in many stagings, as the dance of which country?

Russia: the score calls the number a Russian dance, although the trepak is a folk dance shared with Ukraine, where it is known as the tropak.

The Nutcracker premiered on a double bill with which opera, Tchaikovsky's last?

Iolanta, a one-act opera about a blind princess, was ordered together with the ballet by the director of the Imperial Theatres, who wanted both on a single evening.

Work on The Nutcracker paused in 1891 while Tchaikovsky sailed to America to help open which concert hall?

Carnegie Hall, then called simply the Music Hall, opened in May 1891 with Tchaikovsky conducting; the tour so upset his work that he asked for the ballet's premiere to be put back a season, and got it.

Whose Sugar Plum Fairy in New York City Ballet's 1954 staging helped make The Nutcracker a Christmas fixture?

Maria Tallchief, an Osage dancer from Oklahoma who became America's first major prima ballerina, created the role; the choreographer had been her husband until 1952.

Who breaks Clara's nutcracker at the Christmas Eve party?

Fritz, Clara's brother, breaks the toy, and she cradles it and sings it a lullaby while he and the other boys drown her out with drums and toy pipes.

What does Clara throw at the Mouse King to save the wounded nutcracker?

Her slipper, flung at the Mouse King, distracts him long enough for the Nutcracker to stab him; the mice retreat and the toy becomes a prince.

The Nutcracker's original libretto ended with a closing tableau, or apotheosis, depicting what?

A large beehive with flying bees guarding their riches was the libretto's final tableau; later productions ended instead with a departing sleigh or with the heroine waking from a dream.

Which lyricist put words to the ballet's music for the 2010 flop The Nutcracker in 3D?

Tim Rice, the Evita and Lion King lyricist, set words to Tchaikovsky's themes for Andrei Konchalovsky's film, which earned back under a quarter of its $90 million budget.

Which children's illustrator designed the Pacific Northwest Ballet Nutcracker that was filmed in 1986?

Maurice Sendak, creator of Where the Wild Things Are, at first turned the company down; his 1983 stage designs then reached the screen in Carroll Ballard's film.

Gorsky's 1919 Nutcracker gave the Sugar Plum Fairy's dances to whom?

Clara and the Prince took over the dances once Gorsky cut the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier and cast adults as the young couple, turning their friendship into a romance.

An abridged 1909 recording of The Nutcracker on four discs is considered the first ever what?

Record album is the label historians give the four-disc 1909 Odeon set, which Herman Finck conducted with the London Palace Orchestra. Complete recordings had to wait for the LP.

Which comedy act is said to have inspired the dancing mushrooms in Fantasia's Nutcracker Suite?

The Three Stooges were the guide animator Art Babbitt is said to have credited for the mushrooms' comic shuffle in Disney's 1940 film.

Which child star danced the Prince in the 1993 film of New York City Ballet's Nutcracker?

Macaulay Culkin played the Nutcracker, the Prince and Drosselmeyer's nephew in what remains his only screen ballet role.

Which doll's first computer-animated film, released in 2001, retold the story of the Nutcracker?

Barbie made her CGI debut in Barbie in the Nutcracker, voiced by Kelly Sheridan, and the film sold more than 3.4 million DVDs by 2002.

Which cartoon duo starred in a 2007 film subtitled A Nutcracker Tale, with a cat as villain king?

Tom and Jerry cast the mouse as the Nutcracker, and the film was the last production Joseph Barbera worked on before his death in 2006.

In the original 1816 German tale behind The Nutcracker, Clara is the name of the heroine's what?

Her doll is called Clara in the 1816 story; the ballet's libretto later handed the toy's name to the girl herself.

Which jazz bandleader's swinging 1960 Nutcracker Suite retitled one number Sugar Rum Cherry?

Duke Ellington arranged it with Billy Strayhorn for Columbia, renaming other numbers Peanut Brittle Brigade and Toot Toot Tootie Toot.

Which British actress played a scheming Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms?

Keira Knightley's Sugar Plum Fairy turns out to be the villain of Disney's 2018 film, plotting to take over all four realms with an army of living toys.

In the ballet The Nutcracker, what relation is the toymaker Drosselmeyer to young Clara?

Her godfather arrives late to the party with four lifelike dancing dolls before producing the wooden nutcracker that the other children ignore.

As mice fill the room at midnight in The Nutcracker, what begins to grow to dizzying heights?

The Christmas tree shoots upward while the nutcracker grows to life size, so the battle of toys and mice plays out at a child's-eye scale.

In The Nutcracker's Act II, whose children tumble out from beneath her enormous hoop skirt to dance?

Mother Ginger shelters a brood called the Polichinelles, and the original French programme billed her as Mère Gigogne.

Which bird tops the grandfather clock that strikes as Drosselmeyer arrives in The Nutcracker?

An owl crowns the clock, and when Clara creeps back at night she looks up to find Drosselmeyer himself perched on top of it.

In The Nutcracker's battle scene, which edible army first fights the mice before tin troops join in?

Gingerbread soldiers take the field first, while the dolls act as doctors and carry away the wounded.

Which dancers surround Clara and the Prince in the pine forest that ends Act I of The Nutcracker?

Snowflakes beckon the pair on toward the Prince's kingdom, and the score adds a choir to their waltz.

In the original Nutcracker tale, what does the hero ask for so he can kill the Mouse King?

A sword borrowed from a set of toy hussars does the job, and the nutcracker returns the next night carrying the Mouse King's crowns as proof.

How does the original Nutcracker tale end for the heroine and the young man freed from the curse?

They marry a year and a day after his proposal, and he carries her off to the doll kingdom, where she is crowned queen.

In The Nutcracker's Act II, which instruments do the dancing shepherdesses play?

Flutes give the number its English concert title, though the original French programme calls it the dance of the mirlitons.

In the Nutcracker tale, only a man who has never shaved or worn what can crack the magic nut?

Boots and razors are both ruled out, and the nut-cracker must also hand over the kernel with his eyes shut, then walk backwards without stumbling.

Which a cappella group won a Grammy for its arrangement of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy?

Pentatonix recorded the arrangement for the 2014 holiday album That's Christmas to Me, and the Grammy followed in February 2016.

Which band reworked Nutcracker themes as A Mad Russian's Christmas on its debut album?

Trans-Siberian Orchestra opened its career with Christmas Eve and Other Stories, the album that carries this instrumental rock version of the ballet's music.

Which prog-rock band released Nut Rocker, a rocked-up Nutcracker march, as a live single in 1972?

Emerson, Lake & Palmer played the tune on a Clavinet rather than a piano, and their live single reached number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which NHL team's telecasts long used a rock cover of the Nutcracker march as their theme tune?

Boston Bruins broadcasts opened with Nutty, the Ventures' instrumental rock cover of the march, for some two decades.

Which pop star sampled The Nutcracker on Dark Ballet, a track from her 2019 album Madame X?

Madonna was not alone that year: Mariah Carey opened and closed the anniversary edition of Merry Christmas with the Sugar Plum Fairy's tune.

Which conductor led the Philadelphia Orchestra through the Nutcracker Suite for Disney's Fantasia?

Leopold Stokowski's version dropped the suite's overture and march, leaving six dances for Disney's fairies, fish and leaves.

Which Soviet-born star staged American Ballet Theatre's Nutcracker and danced it on TV in 1977?

Mikhail Baryshnikov was 28 when he premiered the staging in 1976, and the telecast, taped in Toronto, paired him with Gelsey Kirkland as Clara.

Which actor voiced Hans, the cursed hero of the 1990 animated film The Nutcracker Prince?

Kiefer Sutherland starred opposite Megan Follows as Clara, while Peter O'Toole voiced an old toy soldier called Pantaloon.

Which young actress starred in The Nutcracker in 3D, a 2010 film set in 1920s Vienna?

Elle Fanning plays Mary, whose nutcracker NC comes to life; the film took about $20 million against a $90 million budget.

In Mark Morris's Nutcracker retelling set in 1960s suburbia, the toy army is made up of what?

G.I. Joes suit the comic-book look Morris borrowed from the artist Charles Burns for the show, which premiered in Brussels in 1991.

In The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which gift from her late mother can Clara not unlock?

An egg-shaped box sends Clara hunting for its key in a magical land, only for her to discover that it holds a simple music box.

Which American company gave the first complete United States performance of The Nutcracker, in 1944?

San Francisco Ballet danced it on Christmas Eve 1944 under Willam Christensen, who later carried his version to Salt Lake City.

Which country hosted the first complete Nutcracker staged outside its homeland, in 1934?

England saw it at London's Vic-Wells Ballet, where Nicholas Sergeyev rebuilt the original steps from notation he had carried out of his homeland.

Tchaikovsky was less satisfied with The Nutcracker than with which 1890 ballet by the same team?

The Sleeping Beauty had been such a success in 1890 that it won the composer the commission for a new double bill of opera and ballet.

Which director of the tsar's theatres commissioned The Nutcracker and drew its original costumes?

Ivan Vsevolozhsky was a tireless costume-sketcher who prepared more than a thousand drawings for the stage before leaving to run the Hermitage.

A friend's wager is said to explain why the Nutcracker's Grand Pas de Deux adagio is built on what?

A descending scale of one octave is said to have been the composer's reply to a friend who bet he could not make a melody from notes in sequence.

Which Italian composer and ballet conductor led the orchestra at the premiere of The Nutcracker?

Riccardo Drigo conducted a cast whose child roles were danced by real children, students of the company's ballet school, rather than adults.

Which Italian ballerina was the first Sugar Plum Fairy, reportedly taking five curtain calls?

Antonietta Dell'Era spent most of her career at the Berlin Opera, and one critic at the premiere unkindly called her podgy.

Which psychoanalyst discussed the Nutcracker author's bizarre tales in his essay The Uncanny?

Sigmund Freud wrote about the tales because they were so strange; the Nutcracker original features a mouse mother avenging her dead children.

Which veteran actor played Drosselmeyer, a skilled engineer, in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms?

Morgan Freeman's Drosselmeyer hosts the Christmas Eve party in Victorian London and once built a mysterious present for Clara's mother.

In the original Nutcracker tale, which princess does the Mouse Queen curse with ugliness?

Pirlipat is cured when a young man cracks a magic nut for her, then rejects him the moment the curse turns him into a nutcracker.

In the Nutcracker tale, the Mouse Queen's family enrages a king by eating the fat meant for what?

His sausages were spoiled, so the furious king ordered traps that killed the mouse children, and their mother swore revenge.

In the original Nutcracker tale, the nutcracker leads the heroine to the doll kingdom through what?

Her father's coat sleeve is the gateway, and after touring the kingdom she seems to rise higher and higher, then falls and wakes in bed.

In the original Nutcracker tale, which part of her body does the heroine cut on a glass cabinet?

Her arm is gashed when she faints into the toy cabinet during the battle, and she hears the rest of the story while recovering in bed.

Which US state is home to the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum and its thousands of nutcrackers?

Washington's museum, housed in a Bavarian-style building, was founded in 1995 and held over 9,000 nutcrackers by 2023.

The Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum's founder was the first guest on which host's new late-night show in 2010?

Conan O'Brien welcomed Arlene Wagner, known as the Nutcracker Lady, on 8 November 2010, the night his new programme began.

Nutcrackers were known in the 14th century and turn up in which famous medieval story collection?

The Canterbury Tales mentions them, and hinged lever nutcrackers may go back much further, perhaps to Ancient Greece.

Besides nuts, lever-style nutcrackers are commonly used at the dinner table to crack what?

Lobster shells and crab claws yield to the same design, whose pivot sits at the end beyond the nut rather than in the middle like pliers.

Screw nutcrackers are still commonly used for which nut, whose shell defeats ordinary crackers?

Macadamia shells are too hard for a lever cracker, so the screw design, introduced in the 17th century, squeezes more gradually, like a vise.

Which actor was the offscreen narrator of the 1993 film of New York City Ballet's Nutcracker?

Kevin Kline narrates the film, whose director, Emile Ardolino, died only days before it reached cinemas.

Matthew Bourne's 1992 Nutcracker! swaps the family Christmas party for which bleak opening setting?

An orphanage run by Dr. Dross is Clara's home in this version, which was first staged to mark the ballet's centenary.

Which French composer turned the Nutcracker author's stories into an opera named after the writer?

Jacques Offenbach based the opera on three of the stories and made their author its hero, but died four months before the premiere.