1891 - The Nutcracker Ballet is born Following the success of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres in Russia commissions the composer to write the score for The Nutcracker ballet. Marius Petipa, a French ballet dancer and choreographer, and Lev Ivanov, a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer, undertook choreographing the story of The Nutcracker ( Alexandre Dumas - 1845 ) into a ballet

6 December 1892 - The first night of The Nutcracker The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, romanized: Shchelkunchik ) composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky premieres at the Imperial Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia It is a two-act classical ballet (conceived as a ballet-féerie; Russian: балет-феерия, romanized: balet-feyeriya)

Marius Petipa, who wrote the original libretto in French ( Casse-Noisette. Ballet-féerie ) had a daughter named Marie, a famous ballerina. It is believed that because she was not in The Nutcracker, the main character’s name was changed to Clara, so there would be no confusion !!! In the book, the young protagonist is seven-year-old Marie who has also a doll named Fräulein Clärchen (the German version of Clara). In the ballet the Clara character the ballet is 12 years old , and is older than her brother Fritz (he is the elder sibling in the story).