The Nutcracker

Christmas Eve, and the young children Clara and Fritz have unwrapped their new toys from Uncle Drosselmeyer. But soon reality will blur into fantasy as the toys themselves spring to life and begin to weave one of the most enchanting stories ever told. We meet waltzing snowflakes, warring mice and a dashing prince in a story full of vividness for children but spiced with irony and literary allusions for adults.

Christmas would hardly be Christmas without the Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky’s ballet, based on ETA Hoffmann’s fairytale, has charmed seasonal audiences for nearly a century and a half. Much of that is down to Tchaikovsky’s music - unfailingly vivid, brilliantly orchestrated and filled with magical instrumental effects, most famously the miniature bells of the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’. Kjell Seim conducts the Bergen Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in this performance of the ballet with dancers from Bergen Kulturskole. Prepare to enter a world of strange, wonderful and uplifting events and be delighted by some of the most magical melodies ever written.