Nutcracker Ballet 101
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When midnight comes to a household on Christmas Eve, strange things happen in The Nutcracker. A young girl, Clara, shrinks in size, household toys come to life, and a wooden nutcracker takes up arms against giant mice.
First written by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816, the original story tells the tale of the battle between a girl’s dolls (Marie, in the original German), and mice that came out to feed at night. The Nutcracker comes to life and leads other toys into battle against the mice. The Nutcracker becomes a hero — a symbol of the Christmas holiday, even for those who've never read the story, or seen the ballet.
Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (“Nussknacker und Mausekönig”) went from being an obscure children's story to a classical Christmas ballet. Bradley E. Maxwell, on his website the Nutcrackerballet, said the dance was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre of Russia (the San Francisco Ballet performed the first full-length Nutcracker in America on Christmas Eve in 1944).
Marius Petipa decided to choreograph the story into a ballet, according to Maxwell, which was based on a revision of Hoffmann's novel by Alexander Dumas). Petipa’s version reflects more of what we have come to love about The Nutcracker. Petipa, along with Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, turned Dumas’ adaptation into a beloved family Christmas classic.
Hoffmann’s writing can be bizarre, but Jack Zipes, who wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classics’ translation of Hoffmann’s "Nutcracker and Mouse King," believed Hoffmann's goal was to keep childhood wonder alive until we pass from this life. As it is written, it morphs into a coming-of-age story that ends with Clara marrying the nutcracker, which is really a boy under an evil spell that made him an ugly nutcracker.
In Hoffmann's original tale, Marie (Clara) marries Drosselmeyer's nephew, who returns to being normal and asks Marie to marry him. Thus, in the story, she becomes “queen of a land where you can see sparkling Christmas Forests everywhere as well as translucent Marzipan Castles — in short, the most splendid and most wondrous things, if you only have the right eyes to see them with.”
For those who have wondered about a soldier leading a girl around in her nightgown ... well, they're peers. The German Romantics never tried of praising the virtues of chaos and confusion in tales of wonder, according to Maris M. Tatar in her paper on E.T.A. Hoffmann's work, Der Sandmann, which Sigmund Freud also admired and wrote about in his essay on the psychology of the uncanny.
Freud thought highly of Hoffmann, and Freud's The Uncanny, a psychoanalytic essay, focused on what made readers uneasy about Hoffmann's writings. The word unheimlich, German for uncanny in Freud's On the Psychology of the Uncanny, means both “familiar” and “unfamiliar,” which translates into English as “uncanny,” said wiki.uiowa.edu.
Hoffmann’s nutcracker is a bizarre tale, and while Marie's marriage is not uncanny per se, it is tinged with Freud's Electra complex, even though Drosselmeyer is not Marie's father. Freud marveled at Hoffmann's work, though, and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King helps explain why he found this form of fantasy so impressive.
Zipes said that life without imagination in Hoffmann’s tales could be traced to the mechanical behavior of 'deadened.' Adults, adults who wanted to regulate the lives of children, and other adults; people who had been traumatized because they could not use their imagination to gain appropriate recognition of their identities.
“Only by introducing disruptive and extraordinary characters like Drosselmeier, so Hoffmann believed,” Zipes said, “will children have a chance to glimpse the different worlds and alternatives to their lives that have already been chartered and prescribed before they were born.”
In "The Uncanny," Freud quotes E. Jentsch, who said in "The Psychology of the Mysterious," that the uncertainty of story characters being human or robot (an automaton) explored the unknown, mechanical aspect of mental illness. But the storyline also encourages exploration of the unknown. It creates an opportunity to explore the world and one's understanding of a reality not set in stone.
Drosselmeyer, Godfather to Clara, was a clockmaker and inventor in the original story. Dumas' adaption changes the story a lot. Clara did not cut herself and fall into a dream state, for one. Dumas' allowed the Nutcracker (who becomes a princely escort in Clara’s dream) to take Clara on a journey around the world (not a kingdom). And Drosselmeyer guided his Godchild like any good Godfather in both stories.
But Dumas has the Nutcracker become more human on the journey, and Clara sees an entirely new side to her role in life, a life freed of her parents, or society's expectations. Unfortunately, in many productions, Drosselmeyer becomes an over-the-top weirdo and even a seer in command of the snow. In some productions, he's a purveyor of magic, much like in the original story.
Thus, it's sometimes tricky seeing Drosselmeyer as a legitimate part of the story, given Dumas' adaption. Still, Drosselmeyer was a clockmaker who loved his Godchild, and opened a new reality to her, with all its possibilities. The original story had a purpose, as does its adaption. Both were written to help children and parents explore new horizons together.
The timeless story, and especially its main character, has become an icon in popular culture, and much like Hoffmann's original tale, misunderstood. In the video shared below, for example, Mr. Peanut® and the Nutcracker, “Richard,” have fought like drunks in a bar. Only the Nutcracker attacked Mr. Peanut because he's a nut, not because he was another drunk.
Despite bringing root beer to the party, the Nutcracker is a compulsive-obsessive freak. That's why Adam Tschorn, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, wrote so negatively about the ad in “Holiday Trends: Nuts for the Nutcracker.” The portrayal was, he said:
“ … possibly the creepiest — and highest-profile — manifestation of the of the character (Planters’ new Mr. Peanut ad campaign), in which ‘Richard Stevens’ crashes the Christmas party with a six-pack of root beer and briefly apologizes for his past boorish behavior (whatever transgression it was — and we can only guess...).”
Commercialism trivializes our world. Not a terrible thing in and of itself, but always a co-opting stretch in a story's historical meaning. The chaos and confusion Hoffmann wrote into his "Nutcracker and Mouse King," had nothing to do with selling peanuts, or anything else. It was about transformation. Commercialism is our tale of wonder, not his.
Footnote:
1 Tatar, Maria E. E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Der Sandmann": Reflection and Romantic Irony. Jstor,vol. 95, no. 3, German issue (Apr., 1980), pp. 585-608. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (“Nussknacker und Mausekönig”) went from being an obscure children's story to a classical Christmas ballet. Bradley E. Maxwell, on his website the Nutcrackerballet, said the dance was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre of Russia (the San Francisco Ballet performed the first full-length Nutcracker in America on Christmas Eve in 1944).
Marius Petipa decided to choreograph the story into a ballet, according to Maxwell, which was based on a revision of Hoffmann's novel by Alexander Dumas). Petipa’s version reflects more of what we have come to love about The Nutcracker. Petipa, along with Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, turned Dumas’ adaptation into a beloved family Christmas classic.
Hoffmann’s writing can be bizarre, but Jack Zipes, who wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classics’ translation of Hoffmann’s "Nutcracker and Mouse King," believed Hoffmann's goal was to keep childhood wonder alive until we pass from this life. As it is written, it morphs into a coming-of-age story that ends with Clara marrying the nutcracker, which is really a boy under an evil spell that made him an ugly nutcracker.
In Hoffmann's original tale, Marie (Clara) marries Drosselmeyer's nephew, who returns to being normal and asks Marie to marry him. Thus, in the story, she becomes “queen of a land where you can see sparkling Christmas Forests everywhere as well as translucent Marzipan Castles — in short, the most splendid and most wondrous things, if you only have the right eyes to see them with.”
For those who have wondered about a soldier leading a girl around in her nightgown ... well, they're peers. The German Romantics never tried of praising the virtues of chaos and confusion in tales of wonder, according to Maris M. Tatar in her paper on E.T.A. Hoffmann's work, Der Sandmann, which Sigmund Freud also admired and wrote about in his essay on the psychology of the uncanny.
Freud thought highly of Hoffmann, and Freud's The Uncanny, a psychoanalytic essay, focused on what made readers uneasy about Hoffmann's writings. The word unheimlich, German for uncanny in Freud's On the Psychology of the Uncanny, means both “familiar” and “unfamiliar,” which translates into English as “uncanny,” said wiki.uiowa.edu.
Hoffmann’s nutcracker is a bizarre tale, and while Marie's marriage is not uncanny per se, it is tinged with Freud's Electra complex, even though Drosselmeyer is not Marie's father. Freud marveled at Hoffmann's work, though, and The Nutcracker and the Mouse King helps explain why he found this form of fantasy so impressive.
Hoffmann's story is transformational. Its commercialization is our tale of wonder, not his.
Zipes said that life without imagination in Hoffmann’s tales could be traced to the mechanical behavior of 'deadened.' Adults, adults who wanted to regulate the lives of children, and other adults; people who had been traumatized because they could not use their imagination to gain appropriate recognition of their identities.
“Only by introducing disruptive and extraordinary characters like Drosselmeier, so Hoffmann believed,” Zipes said, “will children have a chance to glimpse the different worlds and alternatives to their lives that have already been chartered and prescribed before they were born.”
In "The Uncanny," Freud quotes E. Jentsch, who said in "The Psychology of the Mysterious," that the uncertainty of story characters being human or robot (an automaton) explored the unknown, mechanical aspect of mental illness. But the storyline also encourages exploration of the unknown. It creates an opportunity to explore the world and one's understanding of a reality not set in stone.
Drosselmeyer, Godfather to Clara, was a clockmaker and inventor in the original story. Dumas' adaption changes the story a lot. Clara did not cut herself and fall into a dream state, for one. Dumas' allowed the Nutcracker (who becomes a princely escort in Clara’s dream) to take Clara on a journey around the world (not a kingdom). And Drosselmeyer guided his Godchild like any good Godfather in both stories.
But Dumas has the Nutcracker become more human on the journey, and Clara sees an entirely new side to her role in life, a life freed of her parents, or society's expectations. Unfortunately, in many productions, Drosselmeyer becomes an over-the-top weirdo and even a seer in command of the snow. In some productions, he's a purveyor of magic, much like in the original story.
Thus, it's sometimes tricky seeing Drosselmeyer as a legitimate part of the story, given Dumas' adaption. Still, Drosselmeyer was a clockmaker who loved his Godchild, and opened a new reality to her, with all its possibilities. The original story had a purpose, as does its adaption. Both were written to help children and parents explore new horizons together.
The timeless story, and especially its main character, has become an icon in popular culture, and much like Hoffmann's original tale, misunderstood. In the video shared below, for example, Mr. Peanut® and the Nutcracker, “Richard,” have fought like drunks in a bar. Only the Nutcracker attacked Mr. Peanut because he's a nut, not because he was another drunk.
Despite bringing root beer to the party, the Nutcracker is a compulsive-obsessive freak. That's why Adam Tschorn, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, wrote so negatively about the ad in “Holiday Trends: Nuts for the Nutcracker.” The portrayal was, he said:
“ … possibly the creepiest — and highest-profile — manifestation of the of the character (Planters’ new Mr. Peanut ad campaign), in which ‘Richard Stevens’ crashes the Christmas party with a six-pack of root beer and briefly apologizes for his past boorish behavior (whatever transgression it was — and we can only guess...).”
Commercialism trivializes our world. Not a terrible thing in and of itself, but always a co-opting stretch in a story's historical meaning. The chaos and confusion Hoffmann wrote into his "Nutcracker and Mouse King," had nothing to do with selling peanuts, or anything else. It was about transformation. Commercialism is our tale of wonder, not his.
Footnote:
1 Tatar, Maria E. E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Der Sandmann": Reflection and Romantic Irony. Jstor,vol. 95, no. 3, German issue (Apr., 1980), pp. 585-608. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
posted by C. DeForest Switzer | 1:16 PM
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