48 free The Nutcracker trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free The Nutcracker trivia questions with answers. The Nutcracker is performed more often than any other ballet, and almost none of it happened the way audiences assume. These 48 questions cover the 1892 premiere that flopped, the concert suite that succeeded first, the brand-new instrument Tchaikovsky imported for one three-minute dance, and the 1954 American staging that turned the whole thing into a Christmas institution. There are questions on the source material too — E. T. A. Hoffmann's genuinely strange 1816 tale, the seven-headed Mouse King, the long story-within-a-story that ballet companies always cut — and on the carved wooden dolls from the Ore Mountains that gave the story its title character. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the dates, names and details here are accurate. It works as a solo quiz, a programme-interval argument, or a round for a company that has just done its thirtieth December in a row.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who composed the music for The Nutcracker?
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
It was his third and last ballet. He also wrote Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.
Q 02In which year did the ballet premiere?
1892
The first performance was at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 18 December. It was not considered a success at the time.
Q 03At which theatre was the ballet first performed?
The Imperial Mariinsky
It sits in Saint Petersburg. The premiere took place four days before Christmas in 1892.
Q 04Which choreographer took over when Marius Petipa fell ill?
Lev Ivanov
He had been Petipa's assistant for seven years. Petipa had begun the choreography in August 1892.
Q 05The ballet's plot comes from an 1844 French adaptation by which writer?
Alexandre Dumas
His 1844 story retold a German tale from 1816. The Russians worked from the French version, not the original.
Q 06Who wrote the 1816 German tale the ballet ultimately derives from?
E. T. A. Hoffmann
He was a lawyer, composer and writer of unsettling fantasy. The original story is far darker than the ballet.
Q 07What is the heroine called in the original German tale?
Marie Stahlbaum
Ballet productions usually rename her. Her godfather gives the family a clockwork castle in both versions.
Q 08What are Drosselmeier's occupations in the original tale?
Judge, clockmaker and inventor
He gives the children a clockwork castle with mechanical people inside. The ballet keeps the mystery and drops the day job.
Q 09How many heads does the Mouse King have in the original tale?
Seven
He comes up through the floorboards. Ballet versions vary the count, and some give him only one.
Q 10Which section of the original tale is usually cut from ballet adaptations?
The Fairytale of the Hard Nut
It is a long story-within-a-story across three chapters. Only a few productions have ever staged it.
Q 11Which instrument gives the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy its famous sound?
The celesta
Tchaikovsky had already used it in a symphonic ballad the year before. It had only been invented in 1886.
Q 12Who invented that instrument, and when?
Auguste Mustel in 1886
He was a Parisian harmonium builder. Tchaikovsky heard one and immediately wanted it for his ballet.
Q 13How does the keyboard instrument behind that dance make its sound?
Hammers strike metal plates
Wooden resonators sit under the plates. The result sounds like a music box played by an orchestra.
Q 21Where was Tchaikovsky born in 1840?
Votkinsk
It is a small town in what was then Vyatka Governorate. He died in Saint Petersburg at 53.
Q 22What is Tchaikovsky's death in 1893 usually attributed to?
Cholera from unboiled water
He died in Saint Petersburg aged 53, days after conducting his sixth symphony. Rumours of suicide have circulated ever since.
Q 23Which of these is NOT one of Tchaikovsky's three ballets?
Giselle
The odd one out is by Adolphe Adam. The other three are the backbone of the classical repertoire.
Q 14Which 20th-century composer put that instrument in the title of a 1936 work?
Béla Bartók
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is the piece. Mahler had used the instrument in his sixth symphony before that.
Q 15Which of these dances is NOT part of the Act II divertissement?
The Dance of the Swans
The suite of national dances also includes chocolate from Spain and candy canes from Russia. The swans belong to a different Tchaikovsky ballet altogether.
Q 16In the Act II divertissement, which country does the chocolate dance represent?
Spain
Marzipan shepherdesses get their own number too.
Q 17When was the Nutcracker Suite first performed?
March 1892, before the ballet
The composer conducted it himself at a Musical Society assembly. The concert suite was a hit long before the ballet was.
Q 18How was the first performance of the ballet received?
It was not deemed a success
The concert suite drawn from the score had already gone down far better. Its reputation as a Christmas fixture came much later, and from America.
Q 19Whose 1954 staging turned the ballet into an American Christmas institution?
George Balanchine
He made it for New York City Ballet. Companies across the country copied the idea within a decade.
Q 20Roughly what share of major American ballet companies' annual ticket revenue comes from this one ballet?
About 40%
It is the reason so many companies can afford the rest of their season. Every December the same production pays for the year.
Q 24Who was Nadezhda von Meck?
A railway magnate's widow who was his patron
She supported him financially for thirteen years. The two exchanged hundreds of letters but agreed never to meet.
Q 25Which orchestral piece with cannon fire is among Tchaikovsky's best-known works?
The 1812 Overture
It commemorates the Russian defence against Napoleon. It has nothing to do with any of his ballets.
Q 26Where are decorative nutcracker dolls originally from?
Kings and soldiers, as satire
The region is called the Erzgebirge, and the town of Seiffen is its centre. They date from the late 17th century.
Q 27Who did the traditional German dolls depict, and why?
Kings and soldiers, as political satire
Showing the ruling class cracking nuts with their teeth was the joke. The figures were carved by woodworkers in mining villages.
Q 28How did the dolls become popular in America?
Soldiers brought them home after the Second World War
Troops stationed in Germany bought them as souvenirs. The ballet's American success did the rest.
Q 29In which town did the first mass production of nutcracker dolls begin in 1872?
Seiffen
It sits in Saxony, in the mountains near the Czech border. The town still makes them today.
Q 30Which Tchaikovsky work did that instrument appear in before the famous ballet?
The Voyevoda
It was a symphonic ballad premiered in November 1891. The instrument was barely five years old at the time.