The Young Woman and the Prince of Dreams

Nußknacker und Mausekönig is the original tale by the imaginative and wild-eyed Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, which appeared in 1816, from which grows the happy path of creation by several authors that will make it an inescapable ballet, which blossomed in tsarist Russia, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1892, to the precious music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

In the Hoffmannian horror vision, darkness unleashes dreams and ghosts, fears and shadows, in the imagination of little Marie, fascinated by her uncle Drosselmeyer, a magician, watchmaker, and puppet maker who is fearsome and alluring with his bandaged eye.

Hoffmann's plot is that the children of the wealthy Stahlbaum family receive a nutcracker for Christmas, which little Marie loves at once. At night, when she is asleep, her uncle keeps watch on the top of the clock and stops time. The Nutcracker and her little brother Fritz's toy soldiers fight the Mouse King and his army of tailed assailants who have emerged from the darkness. It is Marie who saves her beloved toys by throwing her dolls and her slipper, the emblem of femininity, at the Mouse King and fighting the squeaking rodents until she injures herself by bumping into the glass of the toy cupboard; and here the maturing girl's blood cycle is a clear vehicle of symbolic values. A story within a story, the uncle tells The Tale of the Hard Nut, in which the generous wisdom of the girl, who can love even those who, like the nutcracker, are not beautiful, shines through. It actually breaks an evil spell, and she deserves the handsome prince of love who will impale her. Just like Drosselmeyer's nephew, who comes to visit.

The pretty girl feels new impulses of love, on the verge of the wonderful and terrible moment of transition from childhood to adolescence and falling in love.

The ingenious French choreographer Marius Petipa, who laid the foundations of the great ballet repertoire in Russia, was inspired by Frenchman Alexandre Dumas's 1844 adaptation of Histoire d'un casse-noisette, which 'sweetened' Hoffmann's 'dark' fairy tale. Dumas commissioned his right-hand man, Lev Ivanov, to set the dance to a magnificent, restless and magical score, ideal for supporting the emotions of a festive, dreamlike, erotic, almost cinematic affair.

After Ivanov, Russian masters and choreographers set to work on The Nutcracker, with the toy prince of little Marie, or Masha, and with the puppets - theatre within theatre - and the virtuoso automaton dancers whom the gruff uncle animates to entertain the children. This included Gorsky, Lopukhov, Vajnonen, Grigorovich, Baryshnikov for the American Ballet Theatre, and in the United States especially, George Balanchine, who from the 1950s onwards made it an American Christmas must, a cash cow that provided his New York City Ballet with the funds for other, more adventurous productions, according to Mister B's high-concertante tastes.

In the West, it was the Tartar Rudolf Nureyev, from the then Mariinsky-Kirov School of Leningrad, who, after an audacious request for asylum in Paris at the height of the Cold War, overturned a then crystallised panorama with his daring, youthful, impetuous dancing, bringing with him the absolute memory of the great classics, which he tackled energetically and dipped in new colours with sumptuous taste.

His first version of The Nutcracker was staged in 1962 at London's Covent Garden, later revived with Merle Park in Stockholm in 1967, and at La Scala in 1969 with Liliana Cosi and Vera Colombo in the role of Clara (Marie), reserving for himself the double role of Drosselmeyer and the Prince, characteristic of his dramaturgical interpretation, which he would perform on several occasions as a guest in the greatest theatres of the Old and New Worlds, from Buenos Aires to Berlin.

In Milan, his Nutcracker returned in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s with many national and international stars, and more recently in 2002-2003 with Lisa-Maree Cullum, Roberto Bolle and Maximiliano Guerra, and then in the 2022-2023 season with Jacopo Tissi. The Nutcracker "à la Rudy" will continue at the behest of Manuel Legris, the ballet's director and former Nureyev Prince Extraordinaire.

Rudy, as we know, was a nocturnal animal, and the psychological implications of his choreographies have to do with the dark side of human nature; his nightmare was never to dance again, his dream was to dance forever and ever, to travel the world; he loved the spotlight, the jet set, and to surround himself with objects, colourful clothes and costumes. His Nutcracker is a self-portrait, sumptuous, bright and colourful, dark and disturbing.

Nureyev, as a student, performed Vajnonen's version, embodying and spreading the baggage of tradition, but he looks back and beyond to Hoffmann's story and its psychological implications.

The children, from the street children of the prologue, play a central role for him, as opposed to the complementary one in practice; the adults, reassuring under the Christmas lights, are monsters in the night, magnifying the ghosts and Christmas trees; the relatives and guests are masked bats, revealing the other side of the usual ceremonial bon ton. The protagonists are doubles: the little girl with the ribbon in her hair is the triumphant woman with the tiara of the grand finale, the uncle is her Prince Charming; no Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince Coqueluche for the apotheosis; they are reserved for Clara and her beloved. The transformations of the toys into human beings and vice versa, and the transitions from light to shadow, are all logical and consistent for the magician Rudolf.

Manuel Legris, one of the talented dancers that Nureyev made shine among the stars of the Paris Opéra when he was its maieutic director for the theatre's young generation, knows the above version par cœur, choosing it once again for La Scala, with a guest from his home theatre, Hugo Marchand, alongside Alice Mariani, a prima ballerina trained at La Scala's Accademia del Teatro, who was Clara in the 2022-2023 season.

In this melting pot of Russian, French and Italian cross-fertilisation, one cannot help but think of the first person to play the Sugar Plum Fairy in St Petersburg, the Italian Antonietta Dell'Era.

Overjoyed by the invitation to La Scala, guest of a historical company different from the one in which he grew up, but Nureyevian by choice, Marchand talks about his role in The Nutcracker: "As the uncle, I have to accompany Clara as she discovers her evolution from adolescence to womanhood. The uncle is lame, one-eyed, ambiguous; he inspires fear, even though he brings many gifts and games and affectionately tells the protagonist goodnight, but he also inspires the fear that one must feel in order to grow up, the thrill of being challenged, dominated and conquered. Fear has its own charm; it is attractive. As Prince, I have to be reassuring and let Clara's femininity shine at the moment of transition from openness and light-heartedness to the revelation of her most intimate sides as a young woman".

"In the end, everything is a dream of changes, in an all-encompassing, coherent, romantic ballet story, with the white act of the snowflakes and the colourful one of the character dances, preparing for the triumphant finale, everything is mixed, between fear and love. For Nureyev, The Nutcracker is not just a festive, sugary Christmas ballet, but a complex and valuable work.

Alice, already familiar with Nureyev's dynamics and demanding musicality, highlights "her double dance, of a Clara who travels and flies free and happy in the sugar kingdom, and of a Clara in a golden tutu and with a crown on her head, who shines in the grand pas, on a par with the Prince, in bravura and virtuosity. While he protects and defends her, she is combative and fights to conquer what she wants, overcoming the fears of the subconscious, as young women do today, courageous and resourceful".

 

Elisa Guzzo Vaccarino
A scholar, writer and dance expert, Elisa has worked for decades for newspapers (QN), periodicals (Ballet2000, Classic Voice, Fyinpaper), radio and cultural TV channels, and teaches dance history and criticism. Since 2023, she has been on the Higher Council of Performing Arts in the Ministry of Culture
Translation by Alexa Ahern