1816, E.T.A. Hoffmann writes the fairy tale “The Nutcracker and Mouse King.” Like most of the tales of Hoffmann, it is strange and dark, with this particular story focused on Marie, a girl teetering on the line between childhood and adulthood.

1891. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is commissioned by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Mariinsky eatre, to compose a score for e Nutcracker, which turns out to be the last of Tchaikovsky’s three ballet scores (a er Swan Lake and e Sleeping Beauty). Vsevolozhsky chooses to dramatize the Dumas version of the tale and greatly simpli es the plot. Marius Petipa begins to choreograph the ballet, but becomes ill before it is nished. Mariinsky ballet master Lev Ivanov completes the choreography.

1845. French writer Alexandre Dumas adapts Hoffmann’s work into The Story of a Nutcracker, a lighter take that would become the inspiration for the ballet. He renames the young girl ‘Clara’ (after Marie’s cherished doll in the original) and invents the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

1892. The Nutcracker premieres at the Imperial Mariinsky eater in St. Petersburg, Russia. ough selections from the score had been well-received in concert a few months earlier,