MACON, Ga. — It's the holiday season! As we prepare to gather around the tree, many people will engage in a host of different holiday traditions.
One of the most popular holiday traditions is watching a performance of The Nutcracker. The Nutcracker of Middle Georgia will have performances on December 7-10 at The Grand Opera House. You can get tickets on The Grand Opera House's website.
Before you head out to see it, here are some fun facts about the ballet.
1) Composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky didn't like the subject of The Nutcracker
The last of his three ballets, The Nutcracker, it was first performed in December 1892. It was commissioned the Director of the Russian Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky. However, the composer was "very little pleased by the subject of The Nutcracker" according to the Tchaikovsky Research.
The Tchaikovsky Research is a web-site launched in February 2006 with the aim of making information about the life and works of Russia's greatest composer more widely accessible. Several researchers with academic accolades in music and history contribute to the website.
"Tchaikovsky's unfavorable attitude to the using The Nutcracker for a ballet scenario is reflected in a letter from Vsevolozhsky to Tchaikovsky of 9/21 August 1891: 'I have experienced agonies of remorse for asking you to do this ballet. I know that it is unappealing to you. You are an exceptionally kind soul for not refusing me,'" the website said.
The composer did like E. T. A. Hoffmann's fairytale that the ballet is based off of and that was one of his reasons for agreeing to write it.
2) The Nutcracker has a few different names
The Suite from the ballet The Nutcracker was compiled as a substitute for the symphonic ballad The Voyevoda on the program of a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg where the composer was set to conduct. Some of the ballad was destroyed and so he offered parts of The Nutcracker as a substitute.
"Originally Tchaikovsky intended to call it 'Suite from the ballet "The Fir Tree" or Suite from the ballet "The Christmas Tree" , suggesting that the title of the ballet had not yet been settled upon," The Tchaikovsky Research said.
3) Tchaikovsky didn't think people enjoyed the ballet's debut performance
An excerpt from The Tchaikovsky Research says "According to the composer, the audience was unenthusiastic: 'The Nutcracker was staged quite well: it was lavishly produced and everything went off perfectly, but nevertheless, it seemed to me that the public did not like it. They were bored.'"
4) Tchaikovsky asked for a Celesta for The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy
In June 1891, the composer told Pyotr Jurgenson that he was writing Act II of the ballet. He also asked him to order a new orchestral instrument called the "Celesta-Mustel" from Paris. He said the instrument played "with a divinely unusual sound." At this time, this instrument was very new.
5) The Nutcracker wasn't performed in the US until the 40s
Perfection takes time and The Nutcracker is no different.
The ballet premiered in December 1892 in Saint Petersburg, at the Mariinsky Theatre. The first complete performance outside Russia took place in Prague at the National Theatre in 1908 where the ballet was staged a total of 24 times over the next two years.
The ballet received its first complete performance in January 1934 in London, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre.
William Christensen's production with the San Francisco Ballet in December 1944 was the first complete performance in the United States.
That is over 50 years between the ballet's debut and it hitting the stage in the United States.