TCHAIKOVSKY’S NUTCRACKER — PART I
By the 1930s Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) 25-minute suite of eight dances had completely eclipsed his full-length three-hour ballet written in 1892 a year before the composer’s death. No longer, however: the full two-act ballet nowadays has become a Christmastime staple. Still, the suite provides only a tantalizing selection out of the full score’s unflagging melodic brilliance.
Tchaikovsky’s ballet is based on a novella by German fantasist E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). Disney omitted the suite’s first two numbers, the Miniature Overture and March, both from the ballet’s first act. The suite’s remaining six dances are extracted out of a divertissement during Act Two, a light-hearted “diversion” from the principle entertainment – the actual storyline itself.
In the midst of a battle between the Nutcracker Prince and the dread Seven-headed Mouse King, little Clara saves the day when she throws her slipper at the beastly rodent. In gratitude for his rescue, the Prince escorts his young valiant on a tour through Candyland to meet his sweetheart the Sugarplum Fairy. (Sugar plums are a form of marzipan.) National dances ensue, each representing a form of culinary delicacy: Chinese for Tea, Arabian for coffee, Spanish (not included in the suite) for Chocolate. A Russian dance is thrown into the mix I suppose simply to please Russia’s then-current ruler Czar Alexander III (1845-1894)…
Walt re-arranged these pieces to suit his own continuity. And that continuity has absolutely nothing to do with young Clara and her favorite Christmas gift. Instead it concerns Mother Nature and the pageantry of the seasons. The sketch artists, character designers and animators went in search of inspiration in a vacant lot near the studio. This segment of the movie furnished Disney’s new Effects Department a bonanza for displaying its virtuoso prowess in visual delicacy: twinkling transparent dewdrops, sparkles, splashes, underwater rippling distortion, hoary frost, the illusion of wind. Some of these embellishments were accomplished through extra-painstaking inking of the cels using air-brushing, dry-brushing, and/or stippling.
A whole little department evolved, consisting of people who were adept at their own special effects… The trails of fairy dust marking the paths of the dewdrop fairies… and every other object glowing with iridescent matter were the work of this specialized crew. Difficult and demanding as it was, it was the essence of fantasy.[1]
Other startling effects were photographic tricks.
…they gradually found certain elements that could be drawn, and others that would have to rely on what the camera could do: the lenses, the filters, the double and triple exposures. Still others might be handled with special work on top of the cels: airbrush, oils, smudges, blends.[2]
A new invention, transparent paint was especially propitious.
The transparent paint that produced the appealing filmy effect on the screen was made from the bile of an Asian ox, and was smelly and unpleasant to use.[3]
In spite of the aromatic ordeal of its use, this paint was heavily applied. It made realistic bubbles, dewdrops and the gossamer fantails of goldfish now achievable.
The first section is set to Tchaikovsky’s famous “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy”. The Russian composer orchestrated his melody for the celesta, a small keyboard instrument that produces a distinctive tinkling bell-like sound. He had heard this newly-invented instrument for the first time during a visit to Paris and subsequently arranged to have one sent in great secrecy to Russia so that he might surprise audiences at his new ballet with its unfamiliar unique sound.
Disney’s sequence begins as multi-colored radiant forms begin to swarm around Stokowski’s head after he brings the previous Toccata and Fugue to its sonorous cadence. The maestro swiftly dissolves into the scene as ephemeral very slender sprites, each seeming to glow from within, wake up and flit about like hummingbirds, brandishing their wands to sprinkle dewdrops over various foliage and flowers.
Finally they tackle a spiderweb reminiscent of the one pictured at the beginning and end of the Silly Symphony The Old Mill. Little beads of water like jewels slide down each delicate filament until an awesome longshot of the entire bestrewn web brings this dance to its climax. Then a head-on collision of Dewdrop Fairies sends a flash of sparkling dew drifting down and settling onto a cluster of mushrooms below.
They might have been oriental lizards, with mushrooms merely lamp-lighting their way. Walt nixed the reptiles and located those legumes centerstage in a dim spotlight, the single background for this entire scene. As Tchaikovsky’s “Chinese Dance” begins pumping in the low woodwinds, these dew-splattered mushrooms of assorted shapes and sizes start bouncing in place. Suddenly an ascending arpeggio on the piccolos (what is known in musical parlance as a “Mannheim Rocket”) and they’re off! The whole cluster leaps simultaneously into the air and during a piccolo trill they alight, shake off the dewdrops, then launch into their choreography. One of the most delightful and iconic inspirations in Fantasia, only slightly over one minute long, the sequence was animated beginning-to-end by a single artist, Art Babbitt (the same who briefly married Snow White’s live-action model Margerie Belcher). Its principal dancer turns out to be the littlest mushroom whose name describes his terpsichorean specialty: Hop Low. Like hitch-stepping Dopey in Snow White, the diminutive Hop Low is adorably out-of-step with his corps de légumes. At one point he stumbles completely out of the picture frame! A disorienting and elusive oddity of Babbitt’s conception is the shape-shifting of these dancers: individually they change size and dimension all the while they proceed through their paces. No commentator I have read has called attention to this peculiar aspect of the animation. It ends with a ring of mushrooms posing in a final tableau. Hop Low, having scrambled back into the picture just in time, bows at the center – but only after the final cadence! Like a grace note, this last little choreographic touch was suggested by Walt himself.
[1] Thomas, Frank, and Johnston, Ollie: Disney Animation, the Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981, p. 278.
[2] Johnston, Ollie, and Thomas, Frank: op. cit., p.272.
[3] Johnston, Ollie, and Thomas, Frank: op. cit., p.278.
