Nutcracker Ballet: Chinese Dance/Dance of the Mirilitons (Victor Herbert's Orchestra, recorded 1913). First performed in 1892 in St. Petersburg, the ballet's popularity did not spread to the United States until 1944, when the San Francisco Ballet first performed it, prompting subsequent annual productions from over two hundred American ballet companies, and quickly making the image of the toy soldier nutcracker synonymous with the Christmas holiday.
The original story of The Nutcracker and Mouse King (Nussknacker und Mausekönig) was written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffman, who was inspired by nutcrackers he had seen at a street market in Dresden. German vendors were also the source for American soldiers, who, during World War II, purchased them as souvenirs for loved ones back home, contributing to the proliferation of nutcracker collectibles.
THE NUTCRACKER is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, 18 December 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta.
Although the original production was not a success, the twenty-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in the U.S. Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda.