Sugar Plum Fairy
The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, Балет-феерия, Shchelkunchik, Balet-feyeriya; French: Casse-Noisette, Ballet-Féerie), Op. 71, is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, 18 December 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta.
Although the original production was not a success, the twenty-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in the U.S. Major American ballet companies generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker.
Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda.
Read more about Sugar Plum Fairy: Composition, History, Roles, Synopsis, In Popular Culture, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sugar, plum and/or fairy:
“You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more
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the French council.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses bring ‘em, or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands, and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum or pear.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“A child... who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)