Bolshoi: Nutcracker

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Captured live on 19 December 2010.
Ballet in two acts, based on the tale of the same name by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, with ideas from the scenario by Marius Petipa.

The Nutcracker first opened in 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg. It was Tchaikovsky’s last ballet. Composed in the space of a year, its score today is one of the most popular of all ballet scores. For The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky again joined forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. This version, choreographed for the Bolshoi by Yuri Grigorovich, is full of romanticism and philosophical reflections on ideal love. It became one of the great classics of the 20th century and, alongside Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible, is one of Grigorovich’s most famous works.

Synopsis
It is Christmas Eve in the home of Mr and Mrs Stahlbaum and their children, Marie and Fritz. Family and friends have gathered for the night's festivities. Presents are distributed to the children. Marie’s godfather, Drosselmeyer, gives her a strange toy: a wooden nutcracker, carved in the shape of a little man.

At midnight, after the celebrations are over, all the toys magically come to life. The nutcracker grows to life size and takes command of the tin soldiers, flying to the rescue of Marie, who is threatened by the Mouse King and his mouse army.

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Libretto and choreography: Yuri Grigorovich
Music director: Pavel Klinichev
Sets and costumes: Simon Virsaladze

With the Orchestra of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Russia
With the Bolshoi soloists and the Bolshoi Corps de Ballet