"The Nutcracker is Tchaikovsky's masterpiece. He said beforehand that he would write music that would make everyone weep! I danced in The Nutcracker as a child at the Maryinsky Theater. ... Tchaikovsky remained a child all his life, he felt things like a child. He liked the German idea that man in his highest development approaches the child. Tchaikovsky loved children as themselves, not as future adults.

"Actually, Nutcracker's second act is an enormous balletic sweetshop. In Petersburg there was a store like that, it was called Eliseyesvsky's: huge glass windows, rooms big enough for a palace, high ceilings, opulent chandeliers, almost like the ones at the Maryinsky. The floors at Eliseyesvsky's were covered with sawdust, and you could not hear footsteps -- it was like waking on carpets. The store had sweets and fruits from all over the world, like in A Thousand and One Nights. I used to walk past and look in the window often. ... Everything that appears in the second act of Nutcracker is a candy or something tasty. ... The Sugar Plum Fairy is a piece of candy and the dewdrops are made of sugar. The Buffon is a candy cane. It's all sugar!

"I think that people also like The Nutcracker so much because nowadays everyone is interested in how children used to live and play. In my day there was no interest in that. No one asked children how they lived, what they thought. Children simply tried to become as much like adults as quickly as possible, and that was all."

From Solomon Volkov's "Balanchine's Tchaikovsky"

A dance of death in eight scenes. The characters are the Gentlemen in Black, the Old Mother, the Old Soldier, the Young Girl, the Young Soldier, the Standard Bearer, the Profiteer, the Guerrilla Woman, and Death. Death will dance with all of them except the Gentlemen in Black responsible for the war, and only the Old Mother will welcome him.

The ballet opens with the Gentlemen in Black, diplomats gathered around a green table, who cannot reach an agreement and declare war. Death emerges from the dark performing his rhythmic dance. The Standard Bearer arrives, waving his flag as recruits join the army and loved ones see them off in The Farewells. The Battle. The Partisan. The Refugees. The Brothel. The Aftermath, the war is over. Finally we see the Gentlemen in Black gathered around the green table again, heading toward the next war.

"Why are you wearing the same leather jackets and those Dad jeans?"