The Nutcracker at Sava Centar on December 20 - Tchaikovsky and the Instrument He Brought Back From Paris

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" is performed in the Blue Hall of Sava Centar in Belgrade on December 20, starting at 8pm. Simiram Produkshns is behind the production, billed on the poster as a ballet for the whole family.

"The Nutcracker" is the last of Tchaikovsky's three ballets, premiered in 1892 in St Petersburg, after the E.T.A. Hoffmann story about a girl who gets a wooden toy on Christmas Eve and ends up dreaming her way into a kingdom of sweets. Together with "Swan Lake" and "The Sleeping Beauty" it makes up the trio that still anchors the classical ballet repertoire everywhere in the world.

The score holds some of the most recognisable melodies Tchaikovsky ever wrote - the Waltz of the Flowers and the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. For the second one he used the celesta, an instrument Mustel had only just invented in Paris and which Tchaikovsky came across there in 1891. The choreographer Marius Petipa asked him to make that music sound like drops of water from a fountain. Those passages now play everywhere around New Year, mostly to audiences who have no idea where they come from.

The date is no accident - "The Nutcracker" is a ballet performed around the world specifically in December, as part of the holiday repertoire. Tickets go through tickets.rs, and the performance is in the Blue Hall of Sava Centar.