Culture

The Nutcracker Crisis and How You Can Help

Non-profit ballet companies may not survive 2020 without the revenue from live Nutcracker performances, so please support them by buying tickets to their virtual productions or by donating when you access one for free

Phoby Kazuo ota on Unsplash

If you’ve only ever seen one ballet, the chances are that it was a holiday performance of The Nutcracker. Even if you haven’t seen it, you are no doubt familiar with much of its music composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Excerpts such as “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “March of the Toy Soldiers” are as much a part of our Christmas music songbook as “O Holy Night” and “The Little Drummer Boy.”

The Nutcracker ballet has become increasingly popular, particularly in North America, since the late 1960s. The libretto, based on E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” tells the story of a young girl named Clara who is given a nutcracker in the form of a soldier on…