The Nutcracker Suite - 01 Overture

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky's adaptation of the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann was commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1891. The original production was staged by Marius Petipa on 18 December 1892, premiering on a double-bill with a now semi-forgotten Tchaikovsky opera, Iolanta.