The Nutcracker

-The ballet's music: The collaboration between Petipa and Txaikovski in the Sleeping Beautymade the Nutcracker succeed. He created a joyful music using the right instruments to make the children play them when they will be on the stage: the trumpets, the rattles, the drums, the claims for birds, the cymbals and the drums. He included a little piano called  celesta that was perfect to the Sugar Fairy dance. He included three waltzes: "the Waltz of the Snowflakes", "the Waltz of the Flowers" and the end of the dream of Clara includes a Waltz, too. There are lots of different types of dances from other countries with some pas de deux.

-The most important ballet performers: A lot of ballet dancers participate in this ballet and dancers from different ages in one school because of the variation of characters. The youngest ballerinas dance in three important waltzes. The fastest boys dance as soldiers and there are more characters like Clara or Fritz, the Sugar Fairy or the little snowflakes and the nutcracker of course. Antonietta Dell' Era performed the Sugar Fairy as Galina Ulànova, Alicia Markova, Margot Fonteyn and Nives Poli.
The character of Clara was performed by Attilia Radice, Merle Parki, Anna Razzi, Carla Fracci and Liliana Cosi. George Blanchine performed different types of characters and finally he was the prince. The other performers were Elisabet Terabust, Denis Ganio, Rudy Brians and Ekaterina Maximova- Vladímir Vassíliev. In the contemporany dance you can see Paola Cantalupo. Choreographers created a lot of versions about this magic and Christmas ballet.

-The technique: A lot of dancers can participate in this ballet. The snowflakes waltz is really popular and sometimes it includes the participation of a lot of dancers of different ages. For the childhood dances the choreographers choose twelve boys and twelve girls between the best students to do the grand pliés, the temps levé, the chassés and the galops correctly. They have to be good performers, too. The oldest dancers have to be good actors to perfom the character of the parents of all the kids. Usually, the same kids have to perform as mice. The Chinese dance is funny, difficult and fast. The Russian dance has to be danced by really good dancers. But the variations of Clara and the Prince are really difficult because of the temps de poissson, the position of the "fish" and the balances of the Prince that keep raised Clara with only one arm and only one leg.

-The ballet's dresses: The ladies and gentlemen wear elegant dresses, gloves, hats and a cloak. The little girls wear embroidered dresses and the little boys wear shirts, short jackets and trousers. Clara wears a blue nightdress. The mice wear pyjamas covered by grey skin. They often wear a mask. The soldiers wear shiny sworts and an elegant uniform. The snowflakes wear a short and white tutu. Finally Clara wears a beatiful tutu and the Prince wears the typical dress of a ballet dancing man.