The festive story and the idea for a Nutcracker ballet came from German writer ETA Hoffmann. He wanted to stage a fairy tale performance based on his novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, and create a piece that would surpass everything in both sound and spectacle. He asked Tchaikovsky, composer of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, to work on the musical adaptation. Tchaikovsky’s third and final ballet was a great success and today, The Nutcracker is the world’s the most played ballet piece. You can see it performed by the Szeged Contemporary Ballet Dance Company with a modern twist, on 20 December at the Müpa Palace of Arts.
