A different kind of Nutcracker

It's that time of year when Christmas music plays in every shop and restaurant and radio station.  If you listen carefully, a good deal of the quieter music is from Tchaikovsky's legend of a ballet, The Nutcracker.  Although I'd like to be able to give you a clear summary of the ballet, one simply does not exist.  Every company has it's own version with slightly different plot threads or names for the characters.

In this post, rather than give you the traditional ballet version, I think the animated Tom and Jerry version deserves some appreciation.  Tom and Jerry is the classic cartoon of a cat (Tom) trying to catch a much-wiser mouse (Jerry).  I grew up watching these cartoons, and I've always loved them.  Here's a clip of the movie, and, if you listen to the background music, it's "Dance of the Mirlitons" (or "Dance of the Reed Flutes" or the marzipan-shepherdess variation, depending on who you ask)!

Okay, so this isn't the ballet version of The Nutcracker, but it is the music, which is a huge part of the heart and soul of the performance.  The basis of the story is that Tom and Jerry stumble onto a theater's stage and are magically transported to a land of living toys, much as Clara is in the ballet.  Jerry falls in love with a toy ballerina, but Tom and his band of cats threaten to disrupt the peace of the toy kingdom.  After several mandatory misadventures accompanied by Tchaikovsky's music, Jerry and his ballerina manage to throw out the cats and enjoy peace together.  As the curtain is lowered down on the stage, Santa Claus and a real-life ballerina watch and applaud the adventure.

A bit different, but still a beautiful way to involve children in The Nutcracker story.  The cartoon incorporates so much of the ballet's score and intertwines the ballet's story with the kid-friendly cartoon seamlessly.  I think it's adorable!