TAKE FIVE: E.T.A. HOFFMANN’S ‘NUTCRACKER’

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 | 7:11 a.m.

Who: Nevada Ballet Theatre

What: "The Nutcracker"

Where: UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre

When: Thursday through Dec. 27 (17 performances)

Tickets: $39-$69; 895-2787

E.T.A. Hoffmann gets a subtle nod this time each year. The German writer unknowingly created a holiday event steeped in tradition and embraced by almost every American ballet company.

But with all the attention paid to Sugarplum Fairies, the sweet young Clara (or Marie) and the memorable music of Tchaikovsky, Hoffmann's real work goes unnoticed.

A forerunner in the fantasy genre during the late German romantic movement, Hoffmann's eerie stories are said to have influenced Edgar Allan Poe and other American writers. They intrigued psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Moreover, his stories most definitely would frighten, rather than dazzle, children.

"They're good scary books," says Cynthia Chalupa, assistant professor of German at West Virginia University. "They're good novellas. They've got some creepy tales. He tried to show the underpinnings of humanity. Rather than idealize it, he showed the darkness."

Yet somehow, Hoffmann's "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" became the author's claim to seasonal fame in America.

A glimpse into his life and literary works might add the intellectual depth needed to make "The Nutcracker," which opens Thursday at UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre, all the more fascinating.

1. Literature

Although he is a household name in contemporary Germany, where his works are read in schools, he wasn't recognized in his day for literary merit, says Chalupa, who has studied and written papers on Hoffmann's "mirror motif." "He wrote in this fantastic genre that not everyone bought into." She says, "He's known for showing a stark contrast in the world of art and day-to-day life of bourgeois existence. And he lived that way." The musician, artist, writer and civil servant was born in 1776 as Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann. He lived a somewhat tortured life that ended with progressive paralysis in 1822. Horror and the supernatural were common themes in his work. "Das Fraulein von Scuderi" ("Mademoiselle de Scuderi,)" written in 1819 is an early example of the classic murder mystery genre.

2. Psychoanalysis

Hoffmann's use of the uncanny - something mysterious or unfamiliar - intrigued Freud, who focused on "The Sandman" in an essay titled "The Uncanny." The story is based on a wicked Sandman who threw sand in the eyes of children who didn't go to bed. Much of Hoffmann's work explores criminality, madness, what's real and what's not real. His strive to uncover the unconscious and get into the psyche attracted Jung.

3. Music

Hoffmann was a music critic, conductor, composer and teacher whose best known musical composition is the opera "Undine." In response to his love for the work of Mozart, he eventually swapped the Wilhelm in his name for Amadeus, the A in E.T.A. His stories influenced other composers. Jaques Offenbach based the opera "Les contes d'Hoffmann" ("Tales of Hoffmann") on three Hoffmann stories, including "The Sandman," and Robert Schumann's "Kreisleriana" was based an a character in Hoffmann's "Kater Murr," which is thought to be somewhat autobiographical.

4. Law

Hoffmann studied law at the University of Konigsberg and worked as a civil servant in Germany and in Poland. At one point he was dismissed from the legal profession because of the political caricatures he drew. He eventually returned to government work and served as justice of the Supreme Court in Berlin until he died in 1822.

5. Dance

"The Nutcracker and Mouse King" was not written for children. It was written about children and mystical events during Christmas and the realm of possibility during a conservative reign in Germany. Although the ballet is not typical of his literary works, it does share the themes of fantasy and conflicting ideas of lightness and darkness, which, Chalupa says, Tchaikovsky does a good job of capturing. "Nutcracker" wasn't the only ballet based on a Hoffmann work. The ballet "Coppelia" was based on "The Sandman."