Sugar plum dance tchaikovsky biography

The tempo is steady, like the heartbeat of a mouse king — not too fast, not too slow. There's no key change here; we're in the cozy home key, like we're nestled in a warm, gingerbread house. Section 2: The Strings Stir the Pot Now, the strings come in, and they're like the supportive best friends who hype up our fairy as she shows off her sweet moves.

The mood shifts a bit here, getting a touch more serious, like someone just reminded the fairy she's got a kingdom to run. But don't worry, it's still as light as a feather — or should I say, as light as a tuft of cotton candy. Section 3: The Dance Intensifies Hold onto your tutus, because the dance is about to get a dash more dramatic. The tempo picks up slightly, like the fairy's had one too many sips of espresso.

There have been two major theatrical film versions of the ballet, and both have corresponding soundtrack albums. Ormandy, Reiner and Fiedler never recorded a complete version of the ballet; however, Kunzel's album of excerpts runs 73 minutes, containing more than two-thirds of the music. The music is played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

In the United States, commentary emerged in the s about the Chinese and Arabian characteristic dances. In a article titled "Sorry, 'The Nutcracker' Is Racist", writer Alice Robb panned the typical choreography of the Chinese dance as white people wearing "harem pants and a straw hat, eyes painted to look slanted" and "wearing chopsticks in their black wigs"; the Arabian dance, she said, has a woman who "slinks around the stage in a belly shirt, bells attached to her ankles".

One of their points was that only the Chinese dance made dancers look like an ethnic group other than the one they belonged to. The New York City Ballet went on to drop geisha wigs and makeup and change some dance moves. Some other ballet companies followed. The Nutcracker ' s "Arabian" dance is in fact an embellished, exotified version of a traditional Georgian lullaby, with no genuine connection to the Arab culture.

If there were stereotypes, Tchaikovsky also used them in representing his own country of Russia. Several films having little or nothing to do with the ballet or the original Hoffmann tale have used its music:. There have been several recorded children's adaptations of the E. Hoffmann story the basis for the ballet using Tchaikovsky's music, some quite faithful, some not.

One that was not was a version titled The Nutcracker Suite for Children , narrated by Metropolitan Opera announcer Milton Cross , which used a two-piano arrangement of the music. It was released as a RPM album set in the s. A later version, titled The Nutcracker Suite , starred Denise Bryer and a full cast, was released in the s on LP and made use of Tchaikovsky's music in the original orchestral arrangements.

It was quite faithful to Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King , on which the ballet is based, even to the point of including the section in which Clara cuts her arm on the glass toy cabinet, and also mentioning that she married the Prince at the end. It also included a less gruesome version of "The Tale of the Hard Nut", the tale-within-a-tale in Hoffmann's story.

It was released as part of the Tale Spinners for Children series. This is all done in typical Spike Jones style, with the addition of choruses and some swing music. The entire recording is available at archive. That warm and welcoming veneer of domestic bliss in The Nutcracker gives the appearance that all is just plummy in the ballet world.

But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country The tyranny of The Nutcracker is emblematic of how dull and risk-averse American ballet has become. There were moments throughout the 20th century when ballet was brave.

Sugar plum dance tchaikovsky biography

When it threw bold punches at its own conventions. Afraid of scandal? Not these free-thinkers; Vaslav Nijinsky 's rough-hewn, aggressive Rite of Spring famously put Paris in an uproar in Where are this century's provocations? Has ballet become so entwined with its "Nutcracker" image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?

Act I of The Nutcracker ends with snow falling and snowflakes dancing. Yet The Nutcracker is now seasonal entertainment even in parts of America where snow seldom falls: Hawaii, the California coast, Florida. Over the last 70 years this ballet—conceived in the Old World—has become an American institution. Its amalgam of children, parents, toys, a Christmas tree, snow, sweets and Tchaikovsky's astounding score is integral to the season of good will that runs from Thanksgiving to New Year Since then I've seen it many times.

The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art. So this year I'm running a Nutcracker marathon: taking in as many different American productions as I can reasonably manage in November and December, from coast to coast more than 20, if all goes well.

America is a country I'm still discovering; let The Nutcracker be part of my research. Hoffmann's fairy tale, on which the ballet is based, is troubling: Marie, a young girl, falls in love with a nutcracker doll, whom she only sees come alive when she falls asleep. Marie falls, ostensibly in a fevered dream, into a glass cabinet, cutting her arm badly.

She hears stories of trickery, deceit, a rodent mother avenging her children's death, and a character who must never fall asleep but of course does, with disastrous consequences. While she heals from her wound, the mouse king brainwashes her in her sleep. Her family forbids her from speaking of her "dreams" anymore, but when she vows to love even an ugly nutcracker, he comes alive and she marries him.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. For other uses, see Nutcracker disambiguation. For "March of the Toys", see Babes in Toyland operetta. Composition [ edit ]. History [ edit ]. Saint Petersburg premiere [ edit ].

Subsequent productions [ edit ]. For a more comprehensive list, see List of productions of The Nutcracker. Roles [ edit ]. Act I [ edit ]. Act II [ edit ]. Plot [ edit ]. Musical sources and influences [ edit ]. Variation of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Problems playing this file? See media help. Instrumentation [ edit ]. Musical scenes [ edit ]. From the Imperial Ballet's program [ edit ].

Adage Variation du Prince Coqueluche M. Structure [ edit ]. Concert excerpts and arrangements [ edit ]. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite, Op. Grainger: Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Flower Waltz , for solo piano [ edit ]. Pletnev: Concert suite from The Nutcracker , for solo piano [ edit ]. Contemporary arrangements [ edit ]. Although the Sugar Plum Fairy is the prima ballerina of The Nutcracker , she has very little dancing to do.

This was a considered a major defect among early critics. Dell'Era tried to expand the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in later performances by putting a gavotte by Czibulka into the score. Contents move to sidebar hide. Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Tools Tools. In other projects. Wikidata item. Unlimited copies for you and your students.

However, you may not distribute additional copies to friends and fellow teachers. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in in present-day Udmurtia, Russia. His father was a Ukrainian mining engineer. Peter began piano lessons at the age of five, and within three years he could read music as well as his teacher.