The Nutcracker Premiered in St. Petersburg
On this day · 18 December 1892
The world's most-performed Christmas ballet flopped on opening night, dismissed by critics who could not hear what they were watching.
On 18 December 1892, Tchaikovsky’s two-act ballet The Nutcracker had its first performance at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. It shared the bill with the composer’s one-act opera Iolanta, a lavish double premiere staged for the Imperial Theatres.
The libretto came from Marius Petipa, but illness forced him to hand the choreography to his assistant Lev Ivanov. Drawing on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tale of a girl, a toy soldier and the Mouse King, the production introduced the celesta, whose chiming tone gives the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy its shimmer.
Critics panned the first night; the music outlived their verdict.
Reviewers found the story thin and the spectacle uneven, and the ballet was judged a disappointment. Tchaikovsky’s score told another story. The concert suite he had already drawn from it caught on quickly, and across the twentieth century the full work became a holiday fixture danced worldwide every December.
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