German romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote a fairy tale of a noble and handsome bewitched prince Nutcracker and a sweet, good and selfless girl Masha, and their enemy evil King of mice. Later a French writer Alexander Dumas-pére retold it in his own way, with inherent him joie de vivre and brilliance. He freed a plot of a whimsical creation of Hoffmann's fantasy from the great number of unnecessary details, did a central idea of fairy tale more raised, but images of heroes – more simply and more human, more warm and brighter.
In this form the fairy tale was used like a base of a staging plan and libretto, formed by ballet master Marius Petipa for Tchaikovsky in February 1891.
Firstly "The Nutcracker" was not much liked by the composer, and he took the commission enough unwillingly. However gradually Tchaikovsky keened on the new ballet: internal depth and beauty of the fairy tale are suddenly revealed before him, awoke his inspiration. Since a phantasmagoria became for Tchaikovsky only a form of allegory, he felt himself "in his elements": music of a "puppet-ballet" begun to speak of authentic human feelings. A poem of a young, pure maiden's soul, arose with the emotion standing on the threshold of life, and on waiting of happiness, and of the omnipotent dream, ruled over the human heart.
