The Nutcracker is a classical ballet in two acts. It is based on E.T.A.

Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale The Nutcracker and

the Mouse King. It tells the story of a little girl who goes to the Land of Sweets on Christmas Eve. Ivan
Vsevolozhsky and Marius Petipa adapted Hoffmann's story for the ballet. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the
music. Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov designed the dances. The Nutcracker was first performed at the Mariinsky
Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 18 December 1892. It was a modest success. Some people liked it, others did
not. Because of its reception, the ballet was rarely seen in later years.

About fifty years later, Walt Disney used some of the Nutcracker music in his 1940 animated movie Fantasia. People
liked the movie and started to take an interest in the ballet. Interest grew when George Balanchine's The
Nutcracker was televised in the late 1950s. The ballet has been performed in many different places since then. It is
loved by many people. Before the first performance, Tchaikovsky took some numbers from the ballet to form
the Nutcracker Suite. This work was a great success on the concert stage, and is still played today.

The origin of The Nutcracker has its roots in the great success of The Sleeping Beauty ballet. This ballet was staged
at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1890. It was the work of the director of the Imperial Theatres in
St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky; the composer, Tchaikovsky; and the choreographer, Marius Petipa. Vsevolozsky
thought another ballet based on a children's story would be just as successful as The Sleeping Beauty.[1]

He picked Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" as the subject for the new ballet. This
story was loved by Russians. He wrote an adaptation of Hoffmann's story based on the Alexandre Dumas translation.
He dropped much of the original. Petipa adapted Vsevolozsky's story to the requirements of ballet. Vsevolozsky then
pressured Tchaikovsky into writing the music for the ballet. Tchaikovsky did not like the adaptation of Hoffmann's
story, but he agreed to write the music. [2]

Petipa designed the dances. He gave Tchaikovsky special directions about how the music was to be written. For
example, he wanted a great crescendo of 48 bars as the Christmas tree rose higher and higher in Act 1. He wrote
that the music for the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" should sound like drops of water splashing in a fountain.[3]

In March 1892 the music was almost complete. Tchaikovsky took the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", the "Waltz of
the Flowers", and other numbers from the ballet to form the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite. It was first played for the
Russian Musical Society. The organization's members loved it. Nutcracker Suite is still played today.[4]
Tchaikovsky completed the music for the ballet in April 1892. Rehearsals started in September 1892. Petipa fell ill
and his assistant Lev Ivanov completed the dances.[5] The ballet was first performed on 18 December 1892 at the
Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.[6]Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta was played before the curtain rose on The
Nutcracker. The run ended in January 1893 after eleven performances.[7]

Giselle (French: Giselle, ou les Wilis) is a romantic ballet in two acts. It was first performed by the Ballet du Thtre
de l'Acadmie Royale de Musique at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris, France on Monday, 28 June 1841, with Italian
ballerina Carlotta Grisi as Giselle. The ballet was an unqualified triumph. Giselle became hugely popular and was
staged at once across Europe, Russia, and the United States. The traditional choreography that has been passed
down to the present day derives primarily from the revivals staged by Marius Petipa during the late 19th and early
20th centuries for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg.

Librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Thophile Gautier took their inspiration for the plot from
a prose passage about the Wilis in De l'Allemagne, by Heinrich Heine, and from a poem called "Fantmes" in Les
Orientales by Victor Hugo.

The prolific opera and ballet composer Adolphe Adam composed the music. Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot created the
choreography. The role of Giselle was intended for Carlotta Grisi as her debut piece for the Paris public. She became
the first to dance the role and was the only ballerina to dance it at the Opra for many years.

The ballet is about a peasant girl named Giselle, who dies of a broken heart after discovering her lover is betrothed
to another. The Wilis, a group of supernatural women who dance men to death, summon Giselle from her grave.
They target her lover for death, but Giselle's great love frees him from their grasp. The Wilis are particularly
haunting characters. They are the spirits of virgin girls that died before they married. These creatures were very
popular in Romantic era ballets. Led by Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis, they gain their power in numbers as they
effortlessly move through dramatic patterns and synchronized movements, and control the stage with their long
tulle dresses and stoic expressions. Although still appearing ethereal, watching the Wilis sweep the stage creates an
eerie mood that builds as the ballet continues and they enclose on Albrecht. They are ruthless and hateful of men
because they have all died of a broken heart. Giselle finds forgiveness in her heart for Albrecht, but she knows the
Wilis will not do the same. Their goal is clear and they are relentless on their quest. The Wilis are one of the most
iconic characters in Giselle. They leave an imprint in the viewers mind as they dominate the second act.
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts. Marius Petipa and Ivan Vsevolojsky wrote the story of
the ballet. It was based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood". Tchaikovsky wrote
the music. Marius Petipa designed the dances. The Sleeping Beauty was first presented at the Mariinsky
Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on 15 January 1890. Carlotta Brianza danced the Princess and Pavel Gerdt the
Prince, with Marie Petipa as the Lilac Fairy and Enrico Cecchetti as Carabosse. It was first presented in Europe in a
shortened version by the Ballets Russes in London on 2 November 1921. Catherine Littlefield designed the first
complete Sleeping Beauty in the United States, and presented the production on 12 February 1937 at the Academy
of Music, Philadelphia, with the Philadelphia Ballet.[1]

Swan Lake (Russian: /Lebedinoye ozero), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
in 187576. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular of all ballets.

The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales [a] and tells the story of Odette, a princess
turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius
Reisinger (Vclav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [O.S. 20 February] 1877[1]
[2]
at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base
their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged
for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's
score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo. Origins of
the Swan Lake composition[edit]

The origins of the ballet Swan Lake are rather obscured, and since there are very few records concerning the first
production of the work to have survived, there can only be speculation about who the author of the original libretto
was. The most authoritative theory appears to be that it was written by Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, director of the
Moscow Imperial Theatres during the time that the ballet was originally produced, and possibly Vasily
Geltser, Danseur of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre. However, Geltser was in all probability merely the first
person to copy the scenario for publication, as a surviving copy bears his name. Since the first published libretto of
the ballet and the actual music composed by Tchaikovsky do not correspond in many places, we may infer that the
first actual published libretto was possibly crafted by a newspaper writer who had viewed the initial rehearsals, as
new productions of operas and ballets were always reported in the newspapers of Imperial Russia, along with their
respective scenarios.
According to two of Tchaikovsky's relativeshis nephew Yuri Lvovich Davydov and his niece Anna Meck-Davydova
the composer had earlier created a little ballet called The Lake of the Swans at their home in 1871. This ballet
featured the famous Leitmotif known as the Swan's Theme (or Song of the Swans ). Begichev commissioned the
score of Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky in May 1875 for a rather modest fee of 800 rubles, and soon Begichev began to
choose artists that would participate in the creation of the ballet. The choreographer assigned to the production was
the Czech Julius Reisinger (18271892), who had been engaged as balletmaster to the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial
Bolshoi Theatre (today known as the Bolshoi Ballet) since 1873. It is not known what sort of collaborative processes
were involved between Tchaikovsky and Reisinger. It seems that Tchaikovsky worked with only the most basic outline
from Reisinger of the requirements for each dance. [5] Tchaikovsky likely had some form of instruction in
composing Swan Lake, as he had to know what sort of dances would be required. But unlike the instructions that
Tchaikovsky received for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, no such written instruction is known
to have survived. When Reisinger began choreographing after the score was completed, he demanded some
changes from Tchaikovsky. Whether by demanding the addition or removal of a dance, Reisinger made it clear that
he was to be a very large part in the creation of this piece. Although the two artists were required to collaborate,
each seemed to prefer working as independently of the other as possible. [6]