Trivia / The Nutcracker

• Adaptation Overdosed: In its more than a century of existence, there have been numerous versions of the ballet made, to varying degrees of faithfulness to the original choreography and story. A list of some of them can be found here. In addition, there are a number of adaptatons for film and television, both live-action and animated, and several versions adapted for ice skating.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: As one of the most well-known ballets in the world, with numerous productions performed by various companies every holiday season, it's estimated that The Nutcracker generates almost 40% of all revenue for ballet companies.
• Children Voicing Children: The very first performance in 1892 had young students from the Imperial Ballet School portraying the child characters. Many later companies and productions (most notably the New York City Ballet) continue this tradition, both to help the target audience identify with the characters and to give ballet students experience for stage performances.
• Colbert Bump: Believe it or not, the ballet was actually fairly obscure outside Russia until the Nutcracker Suite was featured in Fantasia. Deems Taylor went so far as to say in his introduction to the segment that the ballet "wasn't much of a success and nobody performs it nowadays." The complete ballet was first staged in the USA in 1944, four years after Fantasia was released. The rest is history. (In later releases, the line that "nobody performs it" was cut for sounding ridiculous now that it's probably the most widely performed ballet in the repertoire.)
  • Plenty of people who grew up in The '60s also remember "Waltz of the Flowers" from the low-budget series "Mel-o-Tunes". Tapes with collections of Mel-O-Tunes were also frequent finds in budget video stores in The '80s and The '90s.
• Creator Backlash: Reportedly, Tchaikovsky was none too pleased with the music, which of course proceeded to experience Magnum Opus Dissonance and become his most popular work.
• Cut Song: The Act II divertissements were also supposed to feature a Gigue (English Dance) representing toffee from Britain, which was ultimately cut from the final production. A handful of modern productions (mostly those based in the UK or Australia) add it back.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Some versions of the ballet have an older or adult dancer portraying Marie/Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, to allow for more complicated dancing and choreography.
  • The New York City Ballet's 2021 production had a much older cast playing the children in the party scenes (12-year olds vs. 7-11-year olds), as children younger than 12 were not yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine at the time rehearsals and performances began. This necessitated a rebuilding of the costumes and some minor changes to the choreography (only four Polichinelles could fit underneath Mother Ginger's dress, with the rest hiding behind her).
• Special Guest: Many, if not all, ballet schools and youth ballets who stage this show will bring in professional dancers to play the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, due to the spectacular choreography of their grand pas de deux. Often these guests are alumni of the school or youth ballet in question. Guesting in Nutcracker is also an excellent way to get a little extra money around the holidays, particularly for corps dancers.

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