Questions about 1892 Nutcracker

[mwhistler]

Good Morning All-

I am a new member here ane very glad to have found this website. While not a dancer myself, I am currently researching information on Tchaikovsky ( particularly Nutcracker), and was directed to this site by a friend in the dance world. I am hoping that historians there may have access to information which might help me.

I am curious about the staging of the Apotheosis in the original (1891) production of The Nutcracker. The ending has been revised so many times, and I am looking for reliable information on what "story" was told in the first prodcution. Did Clara an the Nutcracker fly off in a sledge? Did they stay in Konfiturenberg? Did the story return to Drosselmeyer's shop? I am unclear, and would be interested on any specific information readers might be able to supply. Moreover, and anecdotal or access to archival information on this original production would be most appreciated.

Many thanks in advance: I appreciate the access to your knowledge.

Mike,

Philadelphia PA USA

[doug]

Hi Mike,

A good source for info on the 1892 Nutcracker is Roland John Wiley's "Tchaikovsky's Ballets," published by Oxford University Press in 1985, and also "The Life and Ballet of Lev Ivanov," same author and publisher, 1997. The original apotheosis of the Nutcracker may sound a little strange. The original libretto included the following description: "The apotheosis represents a large beehive with flying bees, closely guarding their riches." Eight students from the Imperial Ballet School represented bees. We don't know what action, if any, was carried out in this scene; the apotheosis is not included in the early 20th-century choreographic notation of Nutcracker. Possibly, the scene was included as a nod to the Tsar; bees traditionally represent prosperity. Ballets of this period sometimes included apotheosis scenes that seem to us unrelated, at least directly, to the ballet's plot. Raymonda (1898) included a depiction of a tournament, with jousting knights on horses (made of papier-mache!). Raymonda is set in the middle ages, so at least we can make broad sense of that scene. Sleeping Beauty included a depiction of mythological beings set in a cloudscape, with Apollo driving his chariot. That ballet's last two acts are set in the age of Louis XIV, the sun god, so the Apollo reference also makes broad some sense. Nutcracker's apotheosis seems much more of a baffler.

[Mel Johnson]

Doug, I interpreted that scene as a culmination of the second act as a celebration of consumer goods that the Russians were enjoying as a result of increased trade and improving technology. It also doesn't hurt that a traditional bee-skep looks a lot like the imperial crown of Russia. Bees are a symbol for prosperity (Napoleon used them) and a metaphor for industry. And they also sting, so the Russians were reassured of the defense of a rising middle class by the Tsar.

[Amy Reusch]

I was going to ask this on the Nutcrackers 2004 thread, but perhaps this would be a better place.

Is there somewhere an annotated score? After seeing so many different productions, I find myself somewhat annoyed when certain things don't happen where they "should" in the music. I expect certain bits (like a choreographic focus revealing the tree or the grandfather's drunken jig, or a toast, or a soldier doll or a girls' doll lullabye dance interrupted by boisterous boys), to happen at certain points in the music... and in several productions they do, but in others these points are ignored or placed against different music... I'd like to know if productions are mimicking each other/later productions or whether there was original basis for these in the score/first producton?

My apologies on the grammar.

[Mel Johnson]

The original production score exists, and at certain points, there are annotations for what should be going on on the stage, so that the orchestra can stay "on cue". The Stepanov notations of the original production, taken sometime after the premiere, show mostly what happens in the dances, but the working "choreographic script" and libretto also both survive.

[doug]

That makes good sense to me, Mel.

[rg]

the following wiley article, published a year before his finished book provides further observations to the subjects noted here:

Wiley, Roland John.

Title :on meaning in Nutcracker.

Dance research. London. v 3, no 1, Autumn 1984, p 3-38.

Includes bibliographical references.

i 'sense' that all the 'return journey' aspects of NUTCRACKERs today are imposed by post-1892 producers of the ballet.

one of wiley's article's points is to stress the magic of the proceedings and to contradict the sense that the events are clara's/marie's 'dream'.

i can find no illustrative matter in G. N. Dobrovolskaya's monograph (in russian) on SHCHELKUNCHIK (Casse-noisette)

i don't see any precedent in/around 1892 for the 'return journey' that often takes place in today's stagings.

as for the sleigh in balanchine's prod. (the one more or less resonably founded on the '92 original) it would seem to be an additition to his staging when it was 10 years old and when ter-arutunian re-designed it for NYCB at the new york state theater. (originally, in 1954, balanchine's staging was designed by horace armistead, and i'm not certain how that apotheosis concluded.)

one point balanchine's prod. makes clear - as does grigorovich's in it's non-sugarplum-fairy way - is that our heroine (in balanchine's case, marie) marries her 'little prince' amd the confituremburg celebrations.

regarding the use of a sleigh, the first(?) royal ballet version of NUTCRACKER by peter wright includes a sleigh in the fir-forest scene: an elaborate sled arrives at the start of the snow scene - life-sized & attended by gliding angels - and reappears, at the end, as a smaller prop that means to indicate its being in the distance and carrying clara & the nutcracker prince to confturemburg (tho' it looks more like a flying shoe than anything else given the execution as captured on video). whatever the effect it is obviously a conceit of wright's as the tale does spell out the journey to confituremburg as being made in a walnut-shell boat.

regarding the 'cues' amy brings up, i was struck recently looking at a slew of NUTCRACKERs on video how none but balanchine's really keeps the christmas tree in clear focus for the music's duration, most stagings leave off the tree's growth and re-focus before the music climaxes on the mouse/rat king or some such feature, with the tree no longer the point. (this trend seems to have been initiated as far as current stagings go, by v.vainonen for his 1934 kirov version, so profoundly influential on all soviet versions - even those staged by ex-soviet dancers in the west - ever since.)

[sandik]

regarding the 'cues' amy brings up, i was struck recently looking at a slew of NUTCRACKERs on video how none but balanchine's really keeps the christmas tree in clear focus for the music's duration, most stagings leave off the tree's growth and re-focus before the music climaxes on the mouse/rat king or some such feature, with the tree no longer the point. (this trend seems to have been initiated as far as current stagings go, by v.vainonen for his 1934 kirov version, so profoundly influential on all soviet versions - even those staged by ex-soviet dancers in the west - ever since.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It occurs to me that part of this change, at least in some contemporary productions by smaller ensembles, can be assigned to the fact that the growing tree is an expensive special effect. Most companies can field large groups of small children much more easily than complex stage effects.

[Mel Johnson]

(originally, in 1954, balanchine's staging was designed by horace armistead, and i'm not certain how that apotheosis concluded.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In the 1954 staging, the kids just got back on the boat and left on the rosewater river. (Mr. Irving, what time does the next walnut leave?)

[rg]

good to know this detail, mel; i started seeing GB's Nutcracker only in '69, once ter-arutunian was the designer, so had no idea what peceded the sleighride now part of the staging.

[mwhistler]

Many thanks to all: and a very interesting (if puzzling) answer it is. Certainly is theatrical- especially with eight little junior bees buzzing about.

Mike

[Amy Reusch]

Thanks Mel & RG & Sandik, that is all very interesting. I dream someday that things like annotated scores will be accessible on-line. The "revealing" of the tree I meant was not at the point where it grows (and with Sandik, I suspect that most trees' growth can't support that much music... I agree with Balanchine about the tree*), but rather earlier in the party scene. I guess one of the first Nutcrackers I became familiar with "lit" the tree at this particular point in the music, some others just twinkle the lights ominously, foreshadowing I suppose the later magic. Some productions just ignor it.

*

The biggest single expense was the magic Christmas tree that grows to enormous size midway through the first act.  City Center's stage had no trap doors, meaning that Balanchine and Jean Rosenthal, the lighting designer who did so much to shape the onstage look of New York City Ballet in its early years would have to devise and construct a collapsible tree from scratch.  Balanchine loved to tell how he tricked Baum into spending more on the tree than he had budgeted: "Baum gave me $40,000 [for the entire production].  We studied how the tree could grow both up and also out, like an umbrella.  The tree cost $25,000, and as soon as he had to sign the check, Baum was angry.  He told Betty [Cage], 'Stop that fool.  George, can't you just do it without the tree?'  I said, '[The ballet] is the tree.'  It cost $80,000 instead of $40,000.'

- from "All In The Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine" by Terry Teachout

Nutcrackers for me must have 4 essentials to succeed: truly magical tree; cute real children; good fight choreography for the battle; a good "russian" dance with at least one person who can really jump. I can't abide Nutcrackers with lame battle scenes... it's one of the few chances to draw boys into dancing.