The Nutcracker / Swan Lake

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker was an opera and ballet composed by Tchaikovsky in 1892 after the success of The Sleeping Beauty.
It is composed of two acts and is an adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
It was Christmas Eve. The Stahlbaum family was busy having a Christmas party.
Clara, Mr. Stahlbaum’s daughter, received a nutcracker from her godfather, Mr. Drosselmeyer, as a Christmas gift.
Some naughty boys threw the nutcracker for fun and broke it into two pieces.
Clara was heartbroken, so Mr. Drosselmeyer fixed it for her.
Clara cuddled it and fell asleep under the Christmas tree...
The Nutcracker is a ballet that you can see on stage every Christmas.
It contains beautiful music, so the ballet suite, which is composed of 8 pieces of ballet music, including a dance and a march, are often played alone.

Swan Lake

Swan Lake was a ballet composed by Tchaikovsky in 1876.
Swan Lake is considered one of three classic ballet masterpieces along with The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
It is composed of 4 acts in total and was fashioned from Russian folktales.
It was Prince Siegfried’s birthday party. His mother was pressuring him to settle down and marry, but he had no intentions to marry, so he left the palace and went to a forest.
In a lake deep in the forest, he saw a group of beautiful swans. Among them, a swan who was wearing a crown caught his eyes.
Night came, and the swans transformed into beautiful young ladies.
He found out that the one with the crown was Princess Odette.
He fell in love with her at once and heard a sad story about enchanted young ladies from her...
Swan Lake was the first of Tchaikovsky’s three ballet masterpieces.
It was made at the request of the Bolshoi Ballet, but it did not appeal to people at the premier.
But now it is loved by many people and is one of the most frequently performed ballets.