THE NUTCRACKER is a ballet that has become a must see Christmas classic in America over the last century.
It is based on the short story, THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING, written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which a young girls favorite Christmas toy, comes alive, and battles an evil Mouse King. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumass adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.