The Nutcracker and the Watchmaker
December 18, 1892 premiere of the ballet "The Nutcracker" Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Mariinsky Theater. It was invented more than 70 years ago by an erratic lawyer, musician, conductor, poet, music critic, "pioneer of the unconscious" - and everything in it is not at all simple
All of you, probably, are familiar with the Nutcracker, but I will tell you again the Christmas novel of Hoffmann - real, without denominations, and not the one that you saw in the Big or at Disney.
So, the kids Marie and Fritz are sitting in the dark nursery, where they forgot to light the lamp and listen: in the big room they decorate the tree, lay out toys. The godfather Drosselmeyer, a senior adviser to the court, a watchmaker and a jack of all trades, probably prepared a surprise for them. And indeed - the children are waiting for the castle with moving figures. He takes their attention for a few minutes, but then Fritz rushes to the new soldiers, and Marie, among other expensive gifts, finds a nondescript device for peeling nuts - the mechanical Nutcracker. His thin short legs, an awkward elongated body and a large head with an eternal grin do not frighten the girl. She falls in love with the freak once and for all, as if she sees in him something more.
Late in the evening, laying down to sleep their dolls and rocking the Nutcracker, she witnesses a battle between a mouse army and toy soldiers. The outcome of the battle was disappointing, so Marie fired a shoe into the king, the seven-headed mice leader, in a passion, broke the glass of the doll's cupboard with his elbow and fainted. The next morning she woke up in her bed. Adults - mother and doctor - did not believe her story about what had happened, and the godfather Drosselmeyer started a fairy tale in several evenings.
About the conflict of the mouse queen Mysilda with the king and queen because of the fat eaten.
About how Myshild in revenge turned their beautiful daughter, Princess Pirlipat into a monster with a big head and a grin from ear to ear.
About the horoscope, where it was said about a young man who can crack the supernaturally hard nut Krakatuk, treat them to the princess and retreat for seven steps without stumbling (all with his eyes closed).
About the long 15 years of wandering of the long-standing ancestor of Drosselmeyer, also a watchmaker, in search of a nut and a boy. When both ingredients of magic were found - and not in distant countries, but in their home town of Nuremberg, near the closest relatives of Drosselmeyer - something terrible happened. The nephew of the court watchmaker was able to figure out Krakatuk, but his seventh step was prevented by Myshild, who flung herself at her feet. Dying under the boy's heel, she imposed a curse: the princess returned to her beautiful appearance, the deformity turned to her nephew.
This part of the story, explaining the appearance of the Nutcracker, was omitted in the classical ballet known to us and in the part of publications that were based on Hoffmann's retelling of Alexander Dumas senior. The French public was incomprehensible German gloom, multiple twists of the narrative, sarcasm and the non-childish allusions of the original. Dumas turned the "night" tale into a romantic sentimental story. Since then, there are two "Nutcrackers" in the imaginary world. Both end with the victory of a freak for picking nuts on a mouse king and traveling to a candy-marzipan country, where Marie becomes the bride of the enchanted Nutcracker, Drosselmeyer's nephew, the real Prince. And then - already in reality - they once again confess each other in love and leave far, far away.
Hoffmann wrote this fairy tale for the children of his bosom friend and future biographer, Gitzig. However, Ernst Theodor's natural inclination to mysticism turned the Christmas bike into a colorful nightmare, from which it is difficult to get out. As a nesting doll, the plot opens in the plot: reality turns into a dream, which in turn is interpreted by the sorcerer and secret affairs by the master. Literary critics consider the "Nutcracker and the Mouse King" the lightest, naive novel of Hoffmann, but in it there is something that does not let off an adult reader, a horror lover.
Doubles and dolls, similar to people, at times replacing them - themes that are extremely fashionable in the times of Hoffmann, and now are making collections to other blockbusters. At the end of the 18th century, Europe embraced fashion for mechanical figures or automata. The names of Vokanson and Jacques Droux were rumbling. The first made a wooden copy of the famous faunal statue, calling it "The player on the transverse flute": a figure in human growth extracted sounds from the musical instrument with the help of breathing, her lips moved like a real flute player, and her fingers covered the flute openings. Pierre Jacques Drou built three automatons, two boys, one of whom painted, dipping a pen in ink, another writing (with hyphenation and without grammatical errors), and a organist whose chest while playing the keys heave, and his eyes followed the notes.
Impressive Hoffmann repeatedly inserted into his history of automated characters, whether it's a doll-girl in whom the main character falls in love and does not believe in its mechanism until the last ("Sandman"), or an oracle Turks, predicting better than any gypsy ("Automatic"), . If you read the Nutcracker with the eyes of a child, in the love of a living girl and a mechanical boy there is nothing to worry about. The adult stumbles slightly at the point where Drosselmeyer diagnoses: "He dismantled Princess Pirlipat to pieces, unscrewed the handles and legs and inspected the internal device, but, unfortunately, he was convinced that with age the princess would be more ugly." Literally through several pages it is a question of that Pirlipat - and there is girl Mari. "So," the adult thinks. "The Nutcracker looks like a mechanical figure, but is the nephew of the godfather; Mari looks like a healthy and healthy nymphet, but you can untwist and twist it. " Memory helpfully throws him shots from the "Master Designer", "Chucky" and "Coraline in the country of nightmares." "No, it's better to watch ballet, listen to Waltz of Flowers and think about colorful marzipans," he decides, putting off the book.
7 not at all terrible facts
Hoffmann played several instruments, conducted and wrote music perfectly. His idol and inspiration was Mozart, therefore Ernst Theodore Wilhelm changed his name to Ernst Theodor Amadeus.
Our storyteller so frightened himself with his own fantasies, that during the night work on the texts he woke up his wife Mishka (Mikhalina). As a faithful companion, she sat next to her and knit until morning.
Having written his first story "Cavalier Gluck", Hoffmann published it anonymously. He expected to become known as a composer, and did not want to put his name under any trifle - that's how he evaluated his prosaic experiences.
Since Russia did not make nuggets in the form of a soldier, the Russian translators of the 19th century could not come up with the right word for a long time. Hoffmann's fairy tale was published under the titles "The Mister Shchelkushka Doll", "The Rodent of Nuts and the King of Mice", "The Nutcracker and the Mouse Tsar". Only the premiere of the ballet by Tchaikovsky put an end to this outrage.
In Europe, the Nutcracker was loved not only by children. Prussian General Neuthardt von Gneisenau and Chancellor of Prussia Carl August von Gardenberg paid tribute to the description of the battle between the mouse and the puppet troops - it is true that everything is true and believable.
One of the many directors of The Nutcracker, Rudolph Nureyev was so carried away by the theme of doubles from Hoffmann that in the final he turned the nutco / Prince into the magician Drosselmeyer and performed both games. Nureyev meant that magic with battles and a change of faces was created by the watchmaker only in order to confess the love of young Marie.
Surprisingly, the popularity of Hoffmann in his homeland, and indeed in Europe as a whole, was not in any comparison with the delight of our reader. Later the same story will repeat with Oscar Wilde: Britain and Europe will curse him for his immorality, but the Russians will honor him as a dandy storyteller.