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Thanks to Piotr Tchaikovsky’s catchy music, The Nutcracker is one of the most popular works in the ballet repertoire. In his acclaimed version for Ballett Zürich, Christian Spuck returns to the Christmas ballet’s original plot and transforms it into a poetical and fantastical production.

E.T.A Hoffmann's darkly romantic fairy tale Nussknacker und Mausekönig forms the core of Christian Spuck's work. Conventional ballet productions often neglect and simplify the literary source. Here, both the – often omitted – fairy tale about Princess Pirlipat and the story of the Prince turned into a wooden Nutcracker are part of the ballet.

On stage, Drosselmeier's workshop is transformed into an old revue theatre in which Hoffmann's bizarre figures come to life. In his choreography, Christian Spuck plays with the richness of these figures, with the absurdity and the exaggerated humour of Hoffmann's narrative cosmos, and draws on the sinister fantasy of the German writer.

Christian Spuck's Nussknacker und Mausekönig is a game of imagination and reality that skillfully jumps back and forth between several narrative levels and revives all facets of the fairy tale. It was enthusiastically acclaimed during a guest performance of Ballett Zürich at Moscow’s legendary Bolshoi Theatre.

A production by Accentus Music in co-production with NHK, in cooperation with Opernhaus Zürich.

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