Review Summary: Here, Tchaikovsky is at his most engaging, gracious, and brilliant for no one else could evoke the Christmas Season as well as he did.
After a delicious miniature overture, Act l begins at a Christmas party at which the host's daughter, Clara, is given a nutcracker in the shape of an old man with a giant jaw. Becoming immediately devoted to the nut-cracking gentleman, Clara is distraught when the fellow is broken; unable to sleep during the night, she comes in to look at her injured friend and finds that he and all the toys have come to life. Soon an army of mice appears upon the scene and the nutcracker leads the toys against the rodent enemy to very impressive fairy tail war music. Taking courage, Clara kills the mouse-king with a shoe, and with this victory, the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome young Prince who takes the girl with him to a moonlit forest in which snowflakes dance around them, to the waltzing wordless sighs of children's voices.
The Prince's kingdom is the land of sweets, and it is here that Act ll takes place. Ruling over this land is the Sugar-Plum Fairy, who, along with Prince's sisters, welcomes Clara enthusiastically. The music that prepares for their entry into the land is expansive and gracious: strings and winds, with harps in ever-present attendance, sing a simple but panoramic theme. The melody takes a dazzling turn when again presented by strings, it is vitalized by piccolo, flutes, and clarinets skyrocketing upward on breathtaking, whiplash scales.
The celebration of dances that follows contains some of the most familiar music of the Nutcracker, known through the beloved concert suite. The divertissements begin with the Spanish Dance (chocolate), a lively bolero initiated by trumpet and sparked by the rhythmic snap of castanets. Next is the Arabian Dance (coffee), and Tchaikovsky goes exotic: woodwinds and violins present a languorous melody that sways first to a rocking accompaniment in low strings, then to a persistent drone bass. The Chinese Dance (tea) involves flutes and piccolo on a quaint, ornate melody in the high register, and a persistent, single-harmony accompanying figure in bassoons. In the Trepak (Russian Dance), Tchaikovsky is on home ground with wildly energetic music in which the mind's eye as well as the seeing eye can be amazed by the whirling, leaping, kicking Russian figures cavorting with furious abandon. The Dance of the RTeed Pipes begins with a delicate, elegant melody presented by three flutes. This is followed by what many consider the signature piece of The Nutcracker: the Waltz of the Flowers. Here, Tchaikovsky is at his most engaging, gracious, and brilliant, for the waltz proper is preceded by a grandiose introduction in winds and harp, the latter highlighted by dazzling cadenza flourishes.
Another of the score's best-known and loved episodes occurs in the second variation of the grand pas de deux: the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. One would think it difficult for a tinkly little instrument, even a lovely-sounding one, to make such a sensation, much less a tremendous one. But it did, and still does, and gives a special radiance to the Sugar-Plum music.
The ballet's final waltz is, expectedly, a grand affair. The Apotheosis brings back the magical music of the opening of Act ll; this time the celesta joins the harps, making the mood even more ephemeral than before. Then there is that amazing and gloriously orchestrated, theme built on a simple descending major scale. Finally, brass and winds join in full force, and a curtain falls to the effulgent and exciting sounds of incomparable romantic ballet grandeur.
