Who among us doesn't have a few great Christmas memories to share? Christmas, a wonderful childhood scent that will remain etched in our memories until the end of our lives. Christmas is above all the awakening of our five senses, the arrival of St Nicolas and the dreaded Father Fouettard, and for the post-war generation, the arrival of Father Christmas, the large decorated trees at the crossroads of big cities. Christmas is the ritual with the little glass of brandy placed on the kitchen table, which still fills our hearts with emotion today. Christmas is the memory of the princess outfit or of Peter Pan, of the remote control car whose batteries were exhausted the first hour, of the construction game that we were passionate about. Christmas is the chocolate man we devoured like a croquemitaine. Christmas is fantasy, glitter, beautiful music and beautiful dancing.

The Nutcracker is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination. The plot is an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not as successful as had been the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, The Nutcracker soon became popular.

Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda (1891).

Director: Petr Zuska (Choreography & Direction), Václav Zahradník (Music Director)
Cast: Prague National Theater Orchestra, YOU: Klára Jelínková, I: Štěpán Pechar, Mother: Miho Ogimoto, Father: Giovanni Rotolo, Saint Nicholas: Marek Svobodník, Angel: Magdaléna Matějková, Devil: Ondřej Vinklát, Miss The Nutcracker: Andrea Kramešová, The Mouse King: Francesco Scarpato, The star: Nikola Márová, The National Ballet of the Czech Republic, The Preparatory School of the National Ballet of the Czech Republic