The Hard Nut

Last updated

The Hard Nut is a ballet set to Tchaikovsky's 1892 The Nutcracker and choreographed by Mark Morris. It took its inspiration from the comic artist Charles Burns, whose art is personal and deeply instilled with archetypal concepts of guilt, childhood, adolescent sexuality, and poignant, nostalgic portrayals of post-war America. Morris enlisted a team of collaborators to create a world not unlike that of Burns’ world, where stories take comic book clichés and rearrange them into disturbing yet funny patterns.

Contents

Morris turned to Adrianne Lobel to create sets that would take Hoffmann's tale out of the traditional German setting and into Burns’ graphic, black and white view of the world. With these immense sets and scrims, lighting designer James F. Ingalls created a dark world within retro 1960s suburbia and costume designer Martin Pakledinaz created costumes that helped bring to life Burns’ world, described as being "at the juncture of fiction and memory, of cheap thrills and horror." The last of 10 pieces Mark Morris created during his time as Director of Dance at the National Opera House of Belgium, the piece was his most ambitious work at the time.

The Hard Nut premiered on 12 January 1991 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, just short of the 100th anniversary of the creation of Tchaikovsky's classic score. Shortly after the premiere, the Mark Morris Dance Group returned to the United States, having finished their three-year residency at the Monnaie.

Plot

While resetting the ballet in a 1960s-style American town and costuming it garishly and making the characters rather cartoonlike (the toy soldiers are an army of G.I. Joes), the overall plot of The Nutcracker was rather faithfully followed, to the point of including a pantomime version of "The Story of the Hard Nut," the tale-within-a-tale of E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" in Act II, to explain how Drosselmeyer's nephew was turned into the Nutcracker. This section is usually not included, not even in Tchaikovsky's original version. Princess Pirlipat is turned into a pig-snouted creature as a baby by the vengeful Mouse Queen, and Drosselmeyer searches the world for a way to break the spell, thus ushering the famous Danses caracterisques of Act II. The only one able to do so is Drosselmeyer's nephew, who, after biting a hard nut, breaks the spell placed on Princess Pirlipat, but is turned into a Nutcracker. Princess Pirlipat promptly rejects him, whereupon Clara (here called Marie) declares her love for him and the spell on Drosselmeyer's nephew is broken.

Alterations from the traditional presentation

The Sugar Plum Fairy is eliminated as in the Baryshnikov Nutcracker, and Marie performs all of her dances. Her relationship with Drosselmeyer's nephew becomes romantic at the end and becomes a duet rather than an ensemble piece.

Television airings

In the US the film aired on PBS stations in 1991 as part of the Great Performances series.

It was chosen the favorite by viewer votes in 2007, 2008, and 2009 in Ovation TV's annual "Battle of the Nutcrackers." [1] Ovation did not include it in the 2010 competition. [2]

Commercial releases

The Hard Nut was released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1992 and on DVD in 2007. The DVD extras include "The Arabian Dance," segment which had been cut from the film due to time constraints, [3] and Mark Morris's reflections on the original and ongoing productions of his version of the ballet.

Related Research Articles

<i>Swan Lake</i> 1877 ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake, Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76. Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time.

<i>The Nutcracker</i> 1892 ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as had been the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.

<i>Coppélia</i> Comic ballet composed by Léo Delibes

Coppélia is a comic ballet from 1870 originally choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to the music of Léo Delibes, with libretto by Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter. Nuitter's libretto and mise-en-scène was based upon E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story Der Sandmann. In Greek, κοπέλα means young woman. Coppélia premiered on 25 May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra, with the 16-year-old Giuseppina Bozzacchi in the principal role of Swanhilda and ballerina Eugénie Fiocre playing the part of Frantz en travesti. The costumes were designed by Paul Lormier and Alfred Albert, the scenery by Charles-Antoine Cambon, and Édouard Desplechin and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre.

A nutcracker is a tool for cracking nuts.

<i>Barbie in the Nutcracker</i> 2001 film by Owen Hurley

Barbie in the Nutcracker is a 2001 computer-animated fantasy film co-produced by Mainframe Entertainment and Mattel Entertainment, and distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment.

Sir Anthony James Dowell is a retired British ballet dancer and a former artistic director of the Royal Ballet. He is widely recognized as one of the great danseurs nobles of the twentieth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Nutcracker and the Mouse King</span> 1816 story by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Mährchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.

<i>The Nutcracker Prince</i> 1990 film by Paul Schibli

The Nutcracker Prince is a 1990 Canadian animated romance fantasy film directed by Paul Schibli based on the screenplay by Patricia Watson. It is a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" and Marius Petipa & Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, about a girl named Clara who is gifted a special nutcracker by her uncle. The gift draws her into a world of magic and wonder, and she brings about the conclusion to the legend of The Nutcracker, Prince of the Dolls: a young man named Hans who was transformed into a nutcracker by mice, and can only break the spell if he slays the Mouse King. The film stars Kiefer Sutherland as Hans, Megan Follows as Clara, Mike MacDonald as the evil Mouse King, Peter O'Toole as Pantaloon, an old soldier, Phyllis Diller as the Mouse Queen, and Peter Boretski as Uncle Drosselmeier.

<i>Nutcracker Fantasy</i> 1979 Japanese film

Nutcracker Fantasy is a Japanese-American stop motion animated film produced by Sanrio, very loosely based on Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker and E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It is directed by Takeo Nakamura and written by Shintaro Tsuji, Eugene A. Fournier and Thomas Joachim. It was officially released in Japan on March 3, 1979 and later in the United States on July 6, 1979. The film was nominated for the 1980 Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and the 1980 Young Artist Award for Best Motion Picture featuring youth and won the 1980 Young Artist Award for Best Musical Entertainment.

The Nutcracker is a 1973 Soviet/Russian animated film from the Soyuzmultfilm studio directed by Boris Stepantsev and based partly on Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, but more closely on E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" which inspired the ballet.

<i>The Nuttiest Nutcracker</i> 1999 animated film

The Nuttiest Nutcracker is a 1999 computer-animated direct-to-video Christmas film loosely based on the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. The film was directed by Harold Harris and starred the voices of Jim Belushi, Cheech Marin, and Phyllis Diller. This film follows a group of anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables. Their goal is to help the Nutcracker's army get a star to the top of a Christmas tree before midnight and stop a rodent army from destroying Christmas. The film was released on home video by Columbia TriStar Home Video in 1999. The film aired on CBS December 4, 1999, in addition to being shown on cable.

Wayne Eagling is a Canadian ballet dancer, now retired. After more than twenty years as a popular member of The Royal Ballet in London, he became well known as an international choreographer and company director.

<i>Nutcracker: The Motion Picture</i> 1986 American film

Nutcracker: The Motion Picture, also known as Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker or simply Nutcracker, is a 1986 American Christmas performing arts film produced by Pacific Northwest Ballet in association with Hyperion Pictures and Kushner/Locke, and released theatrically by Atlantic Releasing Corporation. It is a film adaptation of 1892 ballet The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann.

Choreographer George Balanchine's production of Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker has become the most famous stage production of the ballet performed in the U.S. It uses the plot of the Alexandre Dumas, père, version of E.T.A. Hoffmann's tale, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816). Its premiere took place on February 2, 1954, at City Center, New York, with costumes by Karinska and sets by Horace Armistead. It has been staged in New York every year since 1954, and many other productions throughout the United States either imitate it, or directly use the Balanchine staging. However, although it is often cited as being the production that made the ballet famous in the U.S., it was Willam Christensen's 1944 production for the San Francisco Ballet which first introduced the complete work to the United States.

Vasili Ivanovich Vainonen, also spelled Vasily (1901-1964), was a renowned Ingrian Soviet choreographer, mainly for the Kirov Ballet, now known as the Mariinsky Ballet, with which he worked from 1930 to 1938.

<i>The Slutcracker</i>

The Slutcracker is a burlesque, satirical version of the 1892 ballet The Nutcracker that is the creation of Lipstick Criminals troupe director Vanessa White. It has been performed in Somerville, Massachusetts, and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The performance incorporates burlesque and tango dancers, drag kings, hoopers, ballerinas, acrobats, and belly dancers in a retelling of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet from the point of view of a young woman who experiences a sexual awakening during a holiday dream-like sequence.

<i>The Nutcracker</i> (1993 film) 1993 American film

The Nutcracker, also known as George Balanchine's The Nutcracker, is a 1993 American Christmas musical film based on Peter Martins's stage production and directed by Emile Ardolino. It stars Darci Kistler, Damian Woetzel, Kyra Nichols, Bart Robinson Cook, Macaulay Culkin, Jessica Lynn Cohen, Wendy Whelan, Margaret Tracey, Gen Horiuchi, Tom Gold, and the New York City Ballet.

<i>The Nutcracker and the Four Realms</i> 2018 American film

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a 2018 American fantasy adventure film directed by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston and produced by Mark Gordon and Larry Franco, from a screenplay by Ashleigh Powell. Co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures and The Mark Gordon Company, it is a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", as well as of Marius Petipa and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, about a young girl who is gifted a locked egg from her deceased mother and sets out in a magical land to retrieve the key. The film stars Keira Knightley, Mackenzie Foy, Eugenio Derbez, Matthew Macfadyen, Richard E. Grant, Misty Copeland, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman.

References

  1. ↑ "Ovation TV: Battle of the Nutcrackers". Archived from the original on 2010-04-20. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
  2. ↑ "Search - Ovation". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
  3. ↑ Title card on the DVD extra
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.