The Legend
What today appears as a fairy tale of a young girl's magical dream began
as a morbid story filled with dark undertones. E.T.A Hoffman, the author of
"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," never intended the story to be
for children, as his words portrayed a bleak view of humanity and
relationships.
Published in 1816, Hoffman's tale would undergo revision by Alexander
Dumas, eliminating much of the bitterness to adapt the tale as a children's
story. The new version was read with interest by Marius Petipa, the senior
ballet master of the Russian Imperial Ballet, who asked Piotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky to compose a score for a full-length "Nutcracker"
production.
The story would later be simplified, but with the music left intact, and
was created as a holiday tale that has lasted for generations.
Hoffman's plot centers around a young German girl named Marie who lived
in a loveless house. The only warmth in Marie's life is a strange love she
holds for her Nutcracker doll, a gift from her Godfather Drosselmeyer at the family
Christmas party.
At night after the party is over, hundreds of mice appear from cracks in
the room, led by the vicious Mouse King with seven heads. He blackmails Marie
into giving him all of her marzipan dolls by threatening to dismember her
prized Nutcracker doll.
The Nutcracker eventually comes to life and attempts to fight off the
Mouse King, but is easily beaten. Marie retaliates by throwing her slipper at
the Mouse King and fainting immediately after. There was no outcome to the
battle in this portion of Hoffman's tale.
The next time the reader sees Marie, she is lying in a pool of blood
surrounded by her family and a doctor. She apparently has cut her arm on the
glass of a toy cabinet that fell on her and she has nearly bled to death.
Instead of comfort, her family scolds her and sentences her to her room
until she will admit that she is a naughty child. While Marie is recovering,
Drosselmeyer comes to visit and ends up telling her another story about the
Mouse King and the Nutcracker. Here Hoffman tells a story within a story:
The feud of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King is legendary according to
Drosselmeyer. In the beginning, a beautiful princess Pirlipat is cursed to
become forever ugly by the Mouse King's mother who is avenging the death of several
of her sons at the hands of the princess' father.
The only way to stop the curse is for a brave and handsome man to find
the hardest nut in the world, crack it with his teeth, and deliver the kernel
to the princess to eat. To sweeten the hunt, the king has promised his
daughter's hand in marriage and a grand money award to anyone who can break the
curse.
At the final moment when the curse is to take effect, Drosselmeyer's
nephew appears with the prized nut and offers her the kernel. The moment she
swallows the nut, she turns into a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
At the same time, young Drosselmeyer becomes repulsively ugly with
elongated features like those of a wooden nutcracker (hence the name). No one
ever bothered to tell him that he would inherit the curse in place of the
princess.
Instead of a fairy tale ending, the princess is repelled by
Drosselmeyer's ugliness and has her father banish him permanently from the
kingdom or face execution. In the commotion, Drosselmeyer accidentally steps on
the Mouse King's mother and kills her, prompting eternal vengeance on the
Nutcracker.
At this point, Hoffman returns to the main story, where another battle
begins. This time, the Mouse King is killed by the Nutcracker and he sweeps
Marie off into another kingdom where he is a prince. At the end of their
journey through this wondrous place, which also turns out to be the end of the
evening, Marie is brought back to her bedroom.
The story closes on a bright note as Marie meets and marries
Drosselmeyer's nephew, but the abrupt ending and change of good fortune appear
to be added on to disguise all of the bitterness in previous portions of
Hoffman's story.
| Interesting and very different to what we see in the ballet adaption. Mostly unbelievable that such a sad story can turn into an all time Christmas favorite. I think the music and the dancing itself adds a lot to it. Sets the whole in a romantic and dreamy frame. |
{Ballerina stockings from Tildas Vintereventyr}
{Ballerina stockings from Tildas Vintereventyr}
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