The Nutcracker (theatre)

The Nutcracker (Russian, Щелкунчик (Shchelkunchik)) is the familiar ballet adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and The Mouse King. The plot is much simpler than Hoffmann's story: a young girl (Dumas changed the heroine's name from "Marie" to "Clara") receives a toy nutcracker for Christmas. That night, after the festivities are over, a battle between the Nutcracker and the King of Mice ensues, and the Nutcracker defeats the mice. The Nutcracker transforms into a handsome prince and takes Marie to the Land of Dolls and to his palace, where they are treated to several ballet performances. Then Clara wakes up and realizes it was All Just a Dream.

The score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is extremely well-known, and both the ballet and the Nutcracker Suite are perennial favorites for Christmastime performances. This entry at the Other Wiki lists some of the more popular takes on the ballet.

There have been at least three feature length Animated Adaptations, Lacewood Productions' 1990 The Nutcracker Prince, with Kiefer Sutherland in the title role; a second one by Golden Films and GoodTimes Entertainement, released in 1995; and Argus Film Studio's 2004 The Nutcracker and the Mouseking, with Wesley Singerman and Leslie Nielsen as the eponymous rivals, as well as a beloved 1973 Soyuzmultfilm Mime-and-Music-Only "Щелкунчик" short. Also, the music from the Nutcracker Suite was notably featured in Disney's Fantasia, though without any of the ballet characters. There's also a 2018 Disney live-action fantasy film named The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

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The Nutcracker ballet provides examples of:

• All Just a Dream: The ballet usually ends like this, with Marie/Clara waking up the next day. Compared with the book, it's really a Downer Ending.
  • However, in the Balanchine version, she flies off in a sleigh with the prince, giving the impression the dream was real after all, just like in the book.
  • Many versions also include an Or Was It a Dream? moment at the very end where Clara/Marie meets up with the prince in the "real" world.
  • The Royal Ballet's version (which is cast with older dancers as Clara/Marie and the Prince) ends with her running home and encountering a young man (the Prince) who is looking for his uncle. He races to Drosselmeyer's shop and a joyous reunion now the spell has been broken.
  • The version this troper saw, had Clara and the prince go to The Land of Dolls, the dance numbers were performed, then a curtain call, and the play ended there.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Although the book states that Fritz is older than Marie, the ballets make him the younger sibling.
  • Averted in at least one production. The Dayton (Ohio) Ballet retells the story with Historical Domain Characters, with Clara represented by local philanthropist Virginia Kettering as a child. Mrs. Kettering had no brother, so the Fritz character is just a neighbor boy.
• Character Exaggeration: In the original story, Fritz is a precocious, boisterous (if sometimes a bit rude) child who accidentally broke the Nutcracker's jaw on a nut that was too large. Some ballet adaptations make him into an outright brat who breaks the Nutcracker when he gets into a fight over it with Clara/Marie. This is taken to the extreme in the Pacific Northwest Ballet's version, where Fritz rips the Nutcracker out of Clara's hands and breaks him for the fun of it.
• Christmas Special: The ballet is often performed and/or televised around Christmastime.
• God Save Us From the Queen: Averted. The only antagonist is the Mouse King, while the Snow Queen and the Sugarplum Fairy are both quite nice.
• The High Queen: The Sugarplum Fairy seems to be this.
• Hot Consort: Sugarplum's partner, the Cavalier, is a genderflipped version of this.
• Hotter and Sexier: There's a burlesque version of the ballet called The Slutcracker and it more or less typifies this trope.
• Level Ate: The Land of Sweets, populated with various dancing delicacies and the Sugar Plum Fairy.
• Mind Screw: The story ends up being replete with dream logic.
• National Stereotypes: Most of the Act II divertissements are made of this trope.
  • Spexico
  • Arabian Nights Days
  • Chinese Girl and/or Dragons Up the Yin-Yang
  • Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Strong enough to do some of the biggest jumps in the show.
• One-Gender Race: The Snowflakes and the Flowers come across this way in most productions, being portrayed by all-female groups of corps dancers.
• Peacock Girl: The Pacific Northwest Ballet's performance of Coffee has a woman in a peacock costume.
• Plant Person: The Waltz of the Flowers.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Some versions have Clara transform into a young woman when she enters the Land of Sweets, usually for practical purposes, so that she can do more difficult and complicated dancing in Act II.
• Standard Snippet: Tchaikovsky's score is the source of such omnipresent music as "Dance of the Reed Flutes," "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," and "Russian Dance (Trepak)." Unless you've never heard any music at all, it's a pretty sure bet that you've heard this one.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: Unless the director makes a very strong effort to avert it, the plot tends to stall once the characters reach the Land of Sweets.
• Winter Royal Lady: The Snow Queen.