The Nutcracker - Synopsis
THE NUTCRACKER
Choreography by: Edmund Stripe
Act I
Our story begins far away in Russia, at the turn of the 20th century. It is Christmas Eve and the Vishinsky family is welcoming guests to a party at their home. Their children, Klara and Nikolai, play ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ with the other young guests at the party. The game ends with Klara catching Nikolai. Presents are distributed and Klara and Nikolai lead the children in a boisterous dance. The parents, in turn, dance a courtly quadrille.
Suddenly, there is an interruption. It is the arrival of Drosselmeyer, Klara’s godfather. He has arrived at the party with tricks and mechanical dolls to entertain the guests. His dolls perform an elaborate play, telling the story of a man who once made a mousetrap that was so successful that it enraged the Rat Tsar. The Rat Tsar took revenge on the man by turning his nephew into a hideous nutcracker. The only way to break the spell was to find someone who would love the nutcracker, not for what he looked like, but for what he was.
In the play, the young soldier, who is changed into a nutcracker, is helped by a young ballerina who falls in love with him. She defeats the toy Rat Tsar by hitting him on the head with her slipper.
After the play, Drosselmeyer invites Klara to dance with him, mysteriously presenting her with a nutcracker of her own. Nikolai accidentally breaks the nutcracker, but Klara soon forgives him. Drosselmeyer fixes the nutcracker, and Klara and the girls play with their dolls, despite some interruption by the boys and a somewhat overexcited grandfather.
Grandfather and Babushka are invited to dance, the parents and children joining in the fun.
The party ends and the guests depart, the parents taking their weary children with them. Drosselmeyer also appears to leave the party. Klara looks around searching frantically for her nutcracker. But it is nowhere to be seen and Babushka packs Nikolai and Klara off to bed.
Later that night, Klara returns downstairs to the parlour to search for her nutcracker. The town hall clock strikes midnight and at once she is surrounded by mice. Suddenly, Drosselmeyer appears and sends the mice to sleep. He explains to Klara that it was actually he who was being portrayed in the play earlier that evening and it was he who had built the mousetrap that had angered the Rat Tsar. The Rat Tsar, in revenge, had transformed his nephew, Karl, into a nutcracker, the very nutcracker that Klara was now holding!
With Klara’s promise to love the nutcracker, Drosselmeyer employs his magic, causing the room to grow and themselves to shrink. The nutcracker now reappears, life-size to the now tiny Klara and Drosselmeyer. An army of soldiers stream out of the fort to engage in a battle with the cossack rats that have gathered on the other side of the parlour. With the nutcracker leading the soldiers, a fierce battle ensues and eventually the Rat Tsar himself appears. With his powerful magic, he attempts to attack Drosselmeyer, but the nutcracker intervenes to save his uncle.
Klara remembers the play that Drosselmeyer had presented in the parlour that evening and how the ballerina defeated the Rat Tsar by hitting him on the head with her shoe. She strikes the Rat Tsar on the head, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to attack him with his own sceptre.
The Rat Tsar is mortally wounded and the Nutcracker collapses in pain at the feet of Klara and Drosselmeyer. Drosselmeyer realizes that his plans, and his magic, are still not enough to transform his nephew.
Klara and Drosselmeyer sense that their surroundings are changing and as Klara seeks help, she encounters wolves that she thinks are there to devour her precious nutcracker. However the wolves are the attendants of the Snow Tsarina who appears in her sleigh. She instructs Drosselmeyer to stand the nutcracker up and with a wave of her hand, casts a spell that transforms the nutcracker back into Karl. It takes a moment or two for Karl to realize that he is human again. Once he does, he embraces Drosselmeyer and Klara, and thanks the Snow Tsarina for her life-restoring spell.
The Snow Tsarina summons her Snow Princesses and as Klara and Karl frolic in the snow, she guides them towards a mysterious palace far away in the distance.
Act II
The Snow Tsarina leads the sleigh to the gates of the Palace of the Sugar Plum Fairy. There they are greeted by the Palace Pages and are introduced to the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier. The Sugar Plum Fairy introduces guests from all over the world and one by one they dance for Klara and Karl in celebration. There are dancers from Spain, Arabia, China and Russia. Klara and Karl dance and are then entertained by the Palace Pages and the Waltz of the Flowers. The celebrations continue with the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier dancing for their honoured guests, concluding in a rousing finale.
Epilogue
The next morning, Klara exits the house. She has just woken up from an amazing dream and is not quite sure what is real anymore. Down the street, Drosselmeyer and a young man who seems strangely familiar, appear. Drosselmeyer introduces his nephew, Karl to her. Karl, in turn, gives her a gift. After they depart, she unwraps the gift. It is a nutcracker and Klara begins to wonder whether it was all a dream after all.