Just released this month! This version of The Nutcracker is a marvelous combination of story-telling, illustration, and great music. Included with the book is a CD recording of a full-orchestra performance of Tchaikovsky’s music by the Utah Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maurice Abravanel.
Published as an Alfred Knopf Borzoi Book by Random House, this just might very well become the standard version of this popular story. Stephanie Spiner does an excellent job of retelling Hoffman’s short story – Marie, Fritz, and the other children are excitedly awaiting the exchanging of Christmas gifts. Marie’s godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer has the most intriguing gifts – two life-size dolls, who dance when you wind them up, and a life-size toy soldier who marches and maneuvers around the room. For Marie he has one last special gift, a large wooden nutcracker dressed like a general. When Marie falls asleep, she has a vivid dream in which the nutcracker comes to life, fights a dramatic battle with the mouse-king, is transformed from a mustachioed general into a dashing young prince, and takes her to visit his kingdom of sweets, presided over by the Sugar Plum Fairy, where she is entertained by flamenco dancers, Chinese dancers, an Arabian dancing girl, and Madame Ginger.
The illustrations to this fantastic tale are delicate, detailed, precise, and fantastic. Peter Malone is a British artist who studied at both Winchester and Coventry schools of art. Working in watercolors, he creates just the right mix of magic and realism here.
Play the CD, and read the story to your children while they look at the illustrations – especially if you plan to see a performance of the ballet this Christmas. The Nutcracker is a 40 page hardback. The book (including the CD) may be purchased directly from Greenleaf Press for $16.99 by clicking here.
Peter Malone has also illustrated a book and CD version Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf ($19.99). Note: This version of the tale of Peter and the Wolf has a kinder and gentler ending than the traditional version (in which the wolf is captured and taken to the zoo). Here, the wolf promises to reform and is released back into the wild. Available directly from Greenleaf Press for $19.99 by clicking here.
Historical footnote: A performance of The Nutcracker has become a Christmas tradition in the United States, with hundreds of local productions by dance studios every year, in towns and cities large and small.
It comes as a surprise to most people when they learn that the version now widely performed has a history of only about 50 years. For me (I know, I just can’t help being the historian), the most interesting page of this new picture book was the final one with “A Note to the Reader.” Tchaikovsky wrote the music in 1892 to tell a tale adapted from a short story by the German Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann, published in 1816. Russian audiences liked the music. They didn’t much care for the ballet – which was performed with a cast of all adult dancers.
From 1915-1944, the ballet was performed by dance companies in Europe in various adaptations, but never achieved much critical success. The first full-length production with children in the cast seems to have been staged by the San Francisco Ballet in 1944. The modern versions of the Nutcracker which are now staged across the USA are all derived from the version choreographed by George Balanchine in 1954 for the New York City Ballet. Balanchine was a Russian émigré and had danced with the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution (which interrupted his studies just before his 14th birthday) and with the State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet after the Revolution. He fled Russia in 1924 and joined Serge Diaghilev and Stravinsky in Paris at the Ballets Russes. He came to the United States in 1933 and eventually founded the New York City Ballet in 1948. Beginning in 1954, the New York City Ballet’s annual staging of the Nutcracker has made it an American tradition.
– Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press