So far I've watched over to ten minutes of this because I know it's a Christmas ballet,.. but I don't have a single stinking clue of what is going on and when is the toy solider and mouse king supposed to arrive?
More detail to follow the music/action:
NUTCRACKER—SYNOPSIS AND LISTENING GUIDE
ACT I
1. Following the light-footed Overture (the cellos and double basses aren’t heard at all), the curtain rises on the mayor and his wife as they decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. Their children, Clara and Fritz, burst in with their friends and witness the illumination of the tree—an “awestruck” oboe over harp arpeggios and tremolo strings.
2. The sprightly March for the children is a middle-class echo of Bizet’s street urchins in
Carmen.
3. The children’s parents arrive in fancy dress as fashionably outlandish
merveilleuses and
incroyables of the French Revolution. After a formal minuet they dance to a French song, “Bon voyage, M. Dumolet.”
4. The arrival of Clara’s godfather Drosselmeyer is musically intriguing and full of atmosphere and drama. He is mysterious and slightly terrifying but the mood lightens when he unboxes his marvelous mechanical toys. Clara receives a Nutcracker, which Fritz breaks when he insists on playing with it.
5. The choreographer Marius Petipa told Tchaikovsky he could pick up the sheet music for the
Grandfather Dance (Grossvatertanz) from the music store! It’s a German dance, traditionally played at the end of the evening as a signal for everyone to leave. Pianists may recognize it from the conclusion of Schumann’s
Papillons.
6. The guests leave and the children are sent to bed; Clara is not allowed to take the Nutcracker to her room. In this imaginatively scored scene she steals back—a sinister nocturne featuring the English horn—only to stumble upon a transformation when the triangle chimes midnight. As the Christmas tree grows in size, the strings play a rising motif and the orchestration increases in fullness and richness.
7. The parlor is overrun by the Mouse King and his army as they attack the Nutcracker and his toy soldiers. As in his
1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky creates a musical battle between two sets of themes: high-pitched fanfares and drum rolls for the toys and more ominous sounds for the mice. Clara saves the day, throwing her slipper at the Mouse King and killing him, and the wounded Nutcracker turns into a handsome Prince.
8. Clara and the Prince walk over to the Christmas tree and find themselves in a
Spruce Forest in Winter. This transformation from domestic parlor to ancient wintry forest is the emotional high point of the act. Arpeggios from both harps underpin an expansive melody.
9.
Waltz of the Snowflakes is a misleading name: the Prince escorts Clara to his realm not through gently falling snowflakes, but a swirling blizzard. The music begins with a suggestion of a storm before the waltz proper begins. Tchaikovsky cheekily plays with the waltz rhythm, spreading each “oom-pah-pah” across two bars of music instead of the usual one. Two minutes in, Tchaikovsky introduces a new color: a children’s chorus.
ACT II
In the Kingdom of Sweets, a flimsy scenario is sufficient pretext for glorious music: the Sugar-Plum Fairy, Queen of the Kingdom, celebrates the bravery of Clara and the Nutcracker Prince.
10. The richly swirling sounds of a barcarole bring Clara and the Prince to the
Magic Castle where they are welcomed by the Sugar-Plum Fairy and music of incomparable sweetness.
11. The Prince recounts the battle with the Mouse King, giving Tchaikovsky an opportunity to revisit musical themes from Act I.
12. All pretense of storytelling over, the party begins with a sequence of character dances, each confection associated with a different country.
Chocolate is given a Spanish dance with a brilliant solo for the trumpet. The coffee is evidently
Arabian, although its convincingly Oriental music with droning accompaniment is actually based on a Georgian lullaby. Chinese
Tea makes a fleeting appearance, a jogging number with jingling bells and an acrobatic flute. The
Trepak, a Russian Dance, begins “molto vivace” (very lively) and accelerates from there. Following its rumbustious finish the music immediately takes on a dainty character for the
Dance of the Mirlitons. (A mirliton is both a reed pipe, a kind of kazoo, and a tube-like pastry dessert.) A trio of flutes play perfectly coordinated arabesques while the English horn offers its poignant view of affairs.
Mère Gigogne (Mother Ginger) is the French equivalent of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.
13.
The Waltz of Flowers is perhaps Tchaikovsky’s most famous waltz of all and in traditional productions it fills the stage with a cast of thousands, including children carrying garlands. An effusion of melody and impetuous grace reveals Tchaikovsky in his element.
14. The grand
Pas de deux is the finest music in the whole ballet. The Intrada is noble, opulent and as “colossal in effect” as Petipa had had requested. In a dance performance, the cavalier has a fleeting but vigorous
Tarantella followed by the celesta’s big moment, the
Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. The pas de deux ends with a coda for both dancers—cue many pirouettes.
15.
The Final Waltz is more courtly in style than the Waltz of the Flowers, but no less exhilarating. In the Apotheosis the same lilting barcarolle that beckoned us into the fantastical Kingdom of Sweets escorts us back to reality.
First ballet performance: December 18, 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Notes by Yvonne Frindle
Nota bene - the overture at the start is commonly used as an audition piece for aspiring violinists seeking to join a symphony orchestra. It's challenging.
(You have to search for it yourself apparently though because you can't click on the link.)
(JK btw 
)
