The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

On Christmas Eve, young Marie receives a curious wooden nutcracker from her enigmatic godfather Drosselmeier. As midnight strikes, the toys come alive, a seven-headed Mouse King rises from beneath the floorboards, and Marie is swept into a dreamlike battle - and a darker tale of an enchanted prince and an ancient curse. E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 classic is the strange, shadowy original behind Tchaikovsky's beloved ballet: stranger, sharper, and far more haunting than you remember.

E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a German writer, composer, and jurist whose feverish imagination made him a central figure of European Romanticism and a founding master of the fantastic tale. By day a conscientious Prussian judge, by night he poured out stories of doppelgängers, automata, and uncanny enchantment - including "The Sandman," "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," and the novel The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. His haunting blend of the grotesque and the marvelous inspired Poe, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, and the ballets and operas that still bear his mark today.