Contents
The Nutcracker: A Ballet in Two Acts
Chapter 1: Not a Very Good Story
Chapter 2: Lard and Stale Bread
Chapter 3: The Training Ribbon
Chapter 4: The Spice Cookie
Chapter 5: Konstantin Grigorovich Gurkin
Chapter 6: Maksim
Chapter 7: Nevsky Prospect
Chapter 8: The Balalaika Café
Chapter 9: The Missing Dress
Chapter 10: The Way Mice Dance
Chapter 11: Mice Love Romance
Chapter 12: A New Scenario
Chapter 13: For the Sake of the Company
Chapter 14: Sliding Down a Rope
Chapter 15: A Moonlit Performance
Chapter 16: Sasha and a Sword Fight
Chapter 17: A Terror of Mice
Chapter 18: The New Mousetrap
Chapter 19: A Surprise Gift
Chapter 20: Kind to Mice
Chapter 21: Fulcrum and Lever
Chapter 22: Grateful for Turnips
Chapter 23: Yes, I Can
Chapter 24: Battle Scene
Chapter 25: The Peppermint-Oil Plan
Chapter 26: The Lucky Handkerchief
Chapter 27: The Theater Posters
Chapter 28: Dress Rehearsal
Chapter 29: Opening Night
Chapter 30: Because of Irina
Chapter 31: Christmas Morning
Clara and the Mouse King: A Ballet in Two Acts
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
ACT I
The Silberhaus family is having a Christmas party. As the Christmas tree is decorated, guests arrive and enjoy refreshments. The children, including Fritz and Clara Silberhaus, are invited into the room to enjoy the festivities.
When Fritz and Clara’s godfather, a man named Drosselmayer, arrives, he brings presents, including a nutcracker. Fritz and Clara quarrel over the nutcracker, and Fritz breaks its jaw. Saddened, Clara comforts the nutcracker.
Meanwhile, the guests dance.
When bedtime arrives, Clara wants to take the nutcracker with her. Her request is denied. The children leave the party. The guests depart, the Silberhaus parents retire, and the house is quiet.
Clara returns to look at the nutcracker. Suddenly, the room is invaded by mice. Frightened, Clara watches as the Christmas tree grows large. Dolls and other toys and gingerbread soldiers come to life. A battle ensues, and the mice overcome and eat the gingerbread soldiers.
Clara’s nutcracker also comes to life and takes command of an army of tin soldiers. As the battle grows fierce, the mouse king arrives and faces off with the nutcracker. Clara throws her shoe at the mouse king, and the nutcracker and his army are the victors.
The nutcracker is transformed into a prince. Hand in hand, he and Clara walk into the branches of the Christmas tree. They find themselves in a forest of fir trees. Dancing snowflakes waltz in the moonlight.
ACT II
In a fantastic Kingdom of Sweets, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her consort await the arrival of Clara and the nutcracker prince. The Sugar Plum Fairy provides entertainments that include Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, and Russian dances, performing clowns, dancing flutes, and a “Waltz of the Flowers.” The Sugar Plum Fairy and her consort perform a grand pas de deux. After a final waltz, the ballet comes to a dazzling conclusion in the Kingdom of Sweets.
THERE WERE MICE at the Mariinsky.
Saint Petersburg’s famous theater — home to the world’s most spectacular ballets — was completely overrun by creatures that Irina’s father jokingly called the world’s tiniest balletomanes.
“I think the mice really do love the ballet,” Irina told Papa one evening.
“Well, if they don’t, they ought to!” he said. “All Russians love ballet, and they are Russian mice, after all.”
Irina was aware that her father was teasing her. She said, “But I saw the mice. They were peeking out from the carvings on the front of the tsar’s box. A whole crowd of them watching The Sleeping Beauty.”
Irina was nine years old, and had not only seen The Sleeping Beauty but had also been to any number of its rehearsals. She even knew some of the performers. That was because her father and mother worked at the Mariinsky Theater. Papa was the chief custodian, and Mama was a seamstress in the costume department. Mama had stitched the skirt on the dress worn by the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, and Irina had helped her.
“More likely the mice were there for the crumbs left after one of the parties in the tsar’s salon,” said Papa.
The tsar, who enjoyed the ballet as much as any other citizen of Saint Petersburg, often held parties in a special room behind the royal box. There were cakes and pastries; Papa and the other custodians always had to clean up afterward.
“But they are clever mice,” Irina insisted.
“No doubt about that! They’ve outwitted every mousetrap I’ve ever set for them,” said Papa, who, as chief custodian, was expected to get rid of the mice. Not that he had ever succeeded in catching a single one.
Irina said, “If they’re clever, they might like the ballet! Do you know what I think, Papa? I think the mice might like to dance!”
“Well, I suppose they might.”
Her father was humoring her. He didn’t really believe that the mice could dance, but Irina had her own secret reason for believing that they could. She said, “I mean it, Papa. They might listen to the orchestra and dance somewhere out of sight. Under the stage, maybe.”
He chuckled. “They might have their own ballet company, eh?”
“Why not?” For the secret reason mentioned above, Irina had lately been thinking quite a bit about the Mariinsky mice.
Papa said, “I expect the mice will like the new ballet the theater is putting on.”
Irina knew which ballet he meant; it was one that no one had ever seen before. It was called The Nutcracker, and it would be shown at Christmastime. That was months away, but Irina’s mother and the other seamstresses were already busy sewing the costumes: dresses for a party in the first act, dresses for dancing snowflakes, and dresses of golden cloth for the “Waltz of the Flowers” in the second act. Papa had read aloud to Irina the story that had inspired the new ballet — all about a nutcracker, who was really a prince, and a vengeful mouse king leading an army of mice.
Irina had enjoyed the story, but recalling it now, she frowned. The mice in it had been such mean-tempered, nasty creatures. “Oh, but Papa! I don’t think the Mariinsky mice will like the new ballet.”
“What’s that? Why not?”
At that moment Irina felt as if she were a mouse; she felt tiny and powerless and indignant about the unfair opinion people had of her. She felt angry with her father for setting all the mousetraps at the theater, even if it was his job to do so.
“Really, Papa,” she said, not hiding her disapproval. “If you’re a mouse, The Nutcracker is not a very good story at all!”
SNAP! THE SHARP-TOOTHED jaws of the mousetrap clamped shut. Esmeralda felt her tail twitch and her heart thump. She said, “I will never get used to this.”
“Never mind,” said her twin brother, Gringoire. “These new traps are no more a danger to us than the old ones, now that we know how to disarm them.”
The two mice stood at a safe distance from the mousetrap at the top of the stairs that led to the attic of the Mariinsky Theater. It was Gringoire who had figured out how to toss a kopek into the trap. The coin jarred the mechanism, setting it off, so the mice could safely retrieve the bait. There were mousetraps like this one all over the theater, and all the Mariinsky mice knew how to use Gringoire’s trick.
“We’re lucky we got here before anybody else,” said
Gringoire. There were quite a few mice who made their home in the attic, but the siblings had risen early in the hope of finding something for breakfast. Esmeralda climbed over the tightly shut jaws, shuddering at the touch of the cold metal. She picked up the kopek and handed it to her brother. Then she scraped up the morsel of lard from the metal tongue in the center of the trap. The morsel was smaller than a hazelnut, hardly enough for one mouse, let alone two.
Or three. Their cousin usually joined them for meals. “Maybe Conrad will have brought something back from scrounge patrol last night,” said Esmeralda as they made their way across the attic floor to her brother’s home.
The scrounge patrols were a necessity of life at the Mariinsky. The mousetraps had never provided enough to eat, so from time to time, teams of volunteers would venture outside for additional provisions, which were then turned over to a special committee of mice who stockpiled the food at several locations within the walls of the theater. The food could then be parceled out to families, but patrol members, who risked dogs, cats, rats, and other dangers in the alleys, streets, and squares of Saint Petersburg, were usually rewarded with extra provisions for their efforts. Esmeralda had recently passed the birthday that marked her as an adult, which meant that she would soon go out on scrounge patrol.
Conrad was waiting for them as they rounded the corner of a wooden crate. “Lard again, I see,” he commented. “Lucky for us I managed to wrest this fresh bread away from a gang of outlaw rats.”
He was joking. The crust of bread he had for them wasn’t fresh. Nor, Esmeralda knew, had he actually taken it from rats. Conrad would be the first to admit that he was a timid soul. He would no more seek out a rat gang than a cat, which meant that his offerings from scrounge patrol were generally the things that were easiest to find. All the same, stale bread was better than no bread.
She gave her cousin a hug. “We have all the makings of a feast!” she said. “But we’ll have to eat quickly if we’re to get to class on time.”
The class she would be attending with Conrad was the daily practice for the Russian Mouse Ballet Company. Though Esmeralda had only recently been accepted into the corps de ballet, she had been given an important role in an upcoming production. She was eager to measure up to the expectations of the company’s ballet mistress, Madame Giselle.
Conrad divided the bread into three pieces, and Gringoire smeared lard on each one. The mice ate in silence until Esmeralda asked, “Did you get in very late, Conrad?”
“Not so very,” he said as he cleaned his whiskers. They were black, which gave him a rakish appearance that was much appreciated by Esmeralda’s friends in the corps de ballet. Conrad was one of the company’s principal dancers, and Esmeralda was always being pressed by her fellow ballerinas to give information about her handsome cousin. “I got more sleep than usual,” he went on, “which is good, since Madame Giselle has got me down for an afternoon rehearsal and an evening rehearsal with Fleur.”
Fleur de Lys was the prima ballerina of the Russian Mouse Ballet Company; she had starred in its last two productions.
“Rehearsals for The Nutcracker?” said Gringoire.
Conrad made a face. “Yes, more’s the pity.”
“You don’t sound too happy.”
“Who could be? The scenario is terrible. You never heard such a dreadful story!”
Gringoire looked surprised. “What’s wrong with it? I thought it was based on Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. That’s a wonderful story!”
Though Esmeralda’s brother often helped out with the ballet company’s productions, he was not a dancer. When he was younger, Gringoire had ventured into one of the theater offices to nibble a pastry left out on a desk. Marius Petipa, ballet master at the Mariinsky, had come upon him unexpectedly. Esmeralda’s brother had escaped through a hole in the wall, but not before Monsieur Petipa had brought his brass-tipped walking stick down on Gringoire’s hind leg. He still walked with a limp that prevented him from dancing and, for that matter, from scrounge patrol duty.
Not that Gringoire ever complained. He often remarked that his injury was a blessing in disguise, for it allowed him to devote countless hours to his favorite pastime of reading. All the Mariinsky mice could read both Russian and French; they attended classes as children so they could read the theater programs. But Gringoire adored books, and for this reason his home was tucked in among several tall stacks of them that someone had left in the attic. There was a French retelling of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King among the books in his collection; Gringoire had read it aloud to Esmeralda. She hadn’t liked it as much as her brother had. Some of the characters were decidedly unappealing; in addition to the wicked mouse king, there was a nasty mouse queen and a fickle-hearted princess named Pirlipat. Esmeralda was relieved these last two had been left out of the ballet. She said, “It’s nothing like the story you read me, Gringoire. Monsieur Petipa and Monsieur Vsevolozhsky have changed everything!”
Ivan Alexandrovich Vsevolozhsky was the director of the imperial theaters in Russia, and Esmeralda suspected that it was he who had come up with the scenario for the new ballet. The man seemed to have his hand in everything that went on at the Mariinksy.
Conrad said, “Everyone’s upset about the battle scene in the first act. The mouse king and his army show up for no reason whatsoever and they all get killed.”
“The other characters in the ballet are supposed to rejoice about that,” Esmeralda explained. “You know — because they’re pretending to be humans. But it’s hard to pretend to be joyful about mice getting killed!”
“The audience certainly won’t like it,” said Conrad.
Gringoire said, “All the same, the battle does sound dramatic.”
“Too bad it’s the only dramatic thing in the ballet,” said Conrad. “The second act is just a lot of candy and other nonsense.”
Esmeralda wondered if her cousin wasn’t being too harsh. She did love the score for the ballet. The music had been composed by Tchaikovsky, the same man who had written the score for the Mariinsky Theater’s recent production of The Sleeping Beauty. She said, “The ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ is pretty. And the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ is lovely.”
Conrad gave a snort. “But nothing happens! If the audience hasn’t left at intermission, they’ll fall asleep.”
The audience would be the ballet-loving mice of Saint Petersburg, and the performance would take place, as did all performances by the Russian Mouse Ballet Company, in a space behind the stage where the human dancers performed. The space had been a closet, once upon a time, before a wall was put up, sealing it off. Thankfully, the wall had not sealed off the sounds of the human orchestra. The mouse audience could hear perfectly well as they watched the mouse performers dance atop a stage made from a shallow box that had been left in the old closet. The mice even had some light from candle stubs they had brought in through tunnels in the walls. It took three so-called fire-mice to light a single match and touch it to each of the candlewicks in turn. The fire-mice also kept watch over the candles in case they went out during a performance. And, in case of fire, they stood by with an array of walnut shells filled with water.
“Is anybody worried that you might not even have an audience?” asked Gringoire.
Esmeralda and Conrad winced at this blunt question. The truth was that the most recent ballets presented by the Russian Mouse Ballet Company had not been successful. An illness had swept through the colony of mice living in the theater a few years back. Many talented dancers, including Esmeralda and Gringoire’s parents, had died. The company’s remaining principal dancers and soloists weren’t quite as strong as their predecessors. Conrad was an exception; his talent and good looks made him popular with audiences. But Fleur de Lys, though technically proficient, had yet to inspire the same adoration as the prima ballerina before her.
Moreover, the Russian Mouse Ballet Company had increasingly found itself competing with the human ballet company. This competiti
on was not new; it had always been the case that the mouse balletomanes of Saint Petersburg would occasionally take in one of the human productions at the Mariinsky. The mice could sneak into the theater and watch the human stage from holes cleverly hidden in the carved fronts of the theater loges. What had changed was that the human productions had become so elaborate. First, there was The Sleeping Beauty, with its gorgeous score by Tchaikovsky and its beautiful scenery and costumes. The mice had danced to the same music, of course, but Madame Giselle had insisted that they didn’t need costumes or sets. “It is the dancing that matters. Monsieur Petipa’s production of the ballet is nothing but spectacle!”
Madame Giselle was not alone in her assessment of Monsieur Petipa’s production of The Sleeping Beauty; a number of human critics had made similar complaints in the Saint Petersburg newspapers. Audiences, however, didn’t seem to mind. People had flocked to Monsieur Petipa’s spectacular production in droves.
People . . . and mice. Indeed, the Saint Petersburg mice had preferred Monsieur Petipa’s production of The Sleeping Beauty to such a degree that, by its close, audiences for the mouse production had dwindled away to a few loyal fans.
The Sleeping Beauty had been followed by another lavish ballet. Monsieur Petipa’s production of this one had featured some two hundred dancers, a golden chariot drawn by horses, and an elephant. Small wonder that the unadorned mouse production had closed after only three performances.
Indeed, it was due to the Russian Mouse Ballet Company’s failure to attract audiences that the Mariinsky mice now spent even more time than usual hunting for food. Their Saint Petersburg audiences had always paid for admission to the mouse ballets with crusts of bread, chopped nuts, bits of cheese, and even cookies and cakes. Now, with so many mice choosing to watch Monsieur Petipa’s dancers (for free, as Conrad pointed out), the Mariinsky mice had no recourse but to scrounge for food outside. Stale bread, usually — and never quite enough.
“Of course we’re worried,” said Conrad. “We’ve got dancers spending their nights hunting for food. They’re tired and not up to practicing during the day. Everyone’s trying because we all know we’ve got to win back our audience. But once word gets out that the scenario for The Nutcracker is offensive to mice, who knows if anybody will show up to see it?”
The Nutcracker Mice Page 1
