The Nutcracker-Part I A dark and sweet Tale
Not too long ago, around this time of year, as I was hustling and bustling between parties and secret Santa, in my endeavor to find the perfect ballet ornament I came across an online article about the darker side of the Nutcracker.
Obviously, this caught my attention. As a lover of old dark fairy tales, I could not resist and thus found myself falling down a rabbit hole of the origins of this famous Christmas story. Two books, and a few articles later, I soon learned that the whimsical ballet that has become the beloved tradition of so many this time of year is based on a very old tale by E.T.A Hoffmann. I soon fell in love with the original tale and whimsical tale of a little girl and her beloved nutcracker.
The Nutcracker is a tale mostly known today in its ballet adaption. The original fairy tale Nutcracker and The Mouse King was written by E.T.A Hoffmann around 1816. Later Alexander Dumas, penned his own version of Hoffmann’s tale, The Tale of the Nutcracker in 1845. Later, The Russian composure, Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, wrote the music to the choreography to the Ballet.
E.T.A Hoffmann
Born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann in Konigsberg, East Prussia in 1776. ETA Hoffmann lived a colorful and oftentimes controversial life. Hoffmann, was an intelligent and ambitious man, who, at the end of the day was a daydreamer. He attended the University of Konigsberg and studied law and graduated in 1795. Shortly afterward, he followed the course of civil service. Although he excelled in his examinations, he was more interested in the arts than law and philosophy.
“It might have seemed that a pleasant, profitable life lay ahead for Hoffmann, for he was personable, remarkably social, hard-working, and one of the most gifted and versatile men of his generation, but there was a certain instability to his mental constitution that persistently overturned his abilities and brough him in to trouble.” (Page vi)
The trouble Hoffmann found himself in may have been his tug of war between his civil service politics and his work as an artist. It is said this “established a recurrent pattern; hard work, achievement, trouble, exile or flight and a new start.”
Below is a brief description of E.T.A Hoffmann’s adventurous life, you can skip over this if you find these things a bit boring, if not carry on.
-1796 he was involved in an affair with his married cousin which led to his first exile to Glogau
-1802 he found himself in a middle of a feud between the military and civilian authorities in Posen (Prussian, Poland) which led to another exile
-In Warsaw he thrived in the arts until Napoleon’s French army defeated the Prussians. Hoffmann refused to take an oath of allegiance to the French authorities and was deported to Berlin.
-In Berlin, pestilence took his young daughters life and Hoffmann nearly died of starvation.
-He eventually took a position in Bamburg (Southern Germany) and participated as director and producer in the local theaters. It was during this time that Hoffmann started writing more music as well as devoting his time to other forms of writing, including fictitious articles and reviews. (ix). It was also during this time in Bamburg that Hoffmann battled with physical illness, depression, and alcohalism.
-Another inappropriate relationship led him out of Bamburg to Dreseden, with a promise of musical director, however the Napoleonic wars broke out again.
– During this time, he altered between Leipzig and Dresden, and apparently watched the battles at close range, as he was “physically fearless-he was once wounded while exposing himself recklessly.” During this time his musical work receded into the background while his literary work gained importance. He wrote his last major musical piece Battle Symphony and wrote his first novel Fantasiestucke in Callots Manier and sold his rights for a cellar of wine.
– In 1814 he was recalled back to Berlin and eventually received permanent appointment in the Kammergericht (Prussian Supreme Court.) However, he was never able to get out of his cycle of debt and drinking.
-From 1814 until 1822 he continued to write fiction and critical reviews. Although he was considered a successful judge, he once again found himself in political trouble and foolishly satirized his opponents in his work Meister Floh.
-By 1822, after battling years of illnesses, paralysis set in. Hoffmann, on the brink of bankruptcy continued to work until his death on June 25, 1822.
E.T.A. Hoffmann was a man of many talents. It must be noted that he was a hard worker and a man of the law. He had many careers that he mostly held simultaneously. He at one point was appointed chairman of the court as “a first-rate administrator and judge, well versed in the law, very conscientious and just” (xi.). But as hardworking and just as he was, his passion was for the arts. Specifically, music. Music was his “first and true love” for he even changed his middle name from Willhelm to Amadeus (thus E.T.A. Hoffmann) in honor of Mozart. He tried to be a composer but was forced to make a living out of literature. However, because of this mixture of musical and literature gifts it made him a “foremost music critic of the day” (xiii). He had an “unerring ear” for the best in music. “He was the first to recognize the merits of J.S. Bach and the first critic to support Beethoven intelligently (xiii).”
Although a successful critic, he was not that successful in his own career as a musician. He wrote “ten operas, incidental music to more than a dozen plays, two masses, several cantatas and many motets, a considerable amount of piano and chamber music, two symphonies, and quite a bit of miscellaneous work (xiii). However, we will never know how much music he wrote, as much was never published and has since been destroyed or lost.
Musicologists (E. Istel and Hans Ehinger) who have studied his work state that he was an “excellent technician whose work somehow lacked the fire and spontaneity and brilliance of his prose..characteristics that made him a world figure in literature” (xiii). How could he be considered a great composer when he was compared to Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? Musicians, who even today have stood the test of time. I am not a musician, nor do I pretend to be, but I do wonder if we were to bring out the old works of Hoffmann, if he would be considered brilliant compared to today’s contemporary music.
Even though it said he lacked Mozart’s brilliance, his music was “extremely important historically, for he was the first Romantic Composer”(xiv). He was known to use instruments to imitate waves crashing and the spirit of pagans. None of his music was recorded.
Hoffmann, after his death, became most famous for his storytelling. Many of his works were translated into French and shared throughout Europe. His work influenced both French and Russian literature. Dostoievsky, has admitted his influence of Hoffmann. However, in the world of English language, his work has been less successful with few English translations.
He is known for the writing the principle of Serapionism-“the technique of presenting the supernatural convincingly.” His characters are said to carry conviction-with strange personality after personality, and stories are told from the “wrong” character. His imagination and touches of fantasy has also been praised by critics. (xvi). Hoffmann was a very subtle writer and had the ability to merge levels of explanation, blending literalistic fantasy with allegory, symbolism, philosophy and psychology of the day.” Critics and Hoffmann himself considered his best work The Golden Flowerpot and experts still try and interpret it and drag out meanings from his personal life.
As mentioned previously, music was Hoffmann’s first and true love. What is important to note, however, is although his own music might have been lost in death and time, his stories continue to live through music.
Many operas and ballets are based on Hoffmann’s tales. The best-known Opera was Les contes d’Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach. Ballet’s include Delibes’s Coppelia ou la Fille aux yeux d’email, based on the dancing doll from “The Sand-Man.” And of course, the most renowned Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, based on Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and the King of Mice.
Hoffmann, with his personal demons, debts, and bad decisions, may have wanted nothing more in life but to become a famous composer, someone who would live on famously through the decades, even centuries, known for his art of musicality. Yet, fate had different plans and being the brilliant man that he was he created fantasy tales through the written word. These stories carried on through history and strongly influenced future writers and musicians.
It is both ironic and satisfying that a man, a man who was in love with music, but could never make a living out of it, that his little story of a girl and her nutcracker, is one of the most (if not THE most) famous ballet of all time.
And so, Hoffmann’s legacy still lives, his fantasy tale is told every year in front of all sorts of audiences. It is told through books and film, but it is best told through a production on a stage, through dance, and music.
Source,
The Best Tales of Hoffmann by E.T.A Hoffmann, Edited with an introduction by E.F. Bleiler. New York, Dover Publications, Inc., 1967
Alexandre Dumas wrote “L’histoire d’un case-noisette” or The Tale of the Nutcracker. His tale was an adaptation of E.T.A Hoffmann’s “Nutcracker and Mouse King” (also known as Nutcracker and the King of Mice).
I will not go into too much length of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870). He was a brilliant and influential French writer whose legacy still lives on, even in English literature, and his life deserves its own blog. However, you may recognize him for his other famous works, such as The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) and The Three Musketeers (1844).
Dumas was known to collaborate with other writers and his focus as a writer was to entertain, unlike Hoffmann who lived for the arts. It is not known why or how he adapted Hoffmann’s Nutcracker and Mouse King. It is not known if he translated it or if he had someone translate it for him and he adapted it. It is known that Dumas was a fan of Hoffmann’s and was familiar with his fairy tales. He even wrote a tale The Woman with the Velvet Necklace (1851) which included Hoffmann as a character who falls in love with a dancer (Zipes xxvi).
Dumas’s adaption is considered “sweeter” or lighter than Hoffmann’s tale. We will get more into the differences a little bit later. But it must be noted that the famous ballet, “The Nutcracker”, is based off Dumas’s sweeter version, The Tale of the Nutcracker.
Source:
Nutcracker and Mouse King, E.T.A Hoffmann/The Tale of the Nutcracker, Alexandre Dumas. Introduction by Jack Zipes. Penguin Books.