Iolanta and the Nutcracker

Iolanta is a blind princess. A famous doctor can cure her, but only after she is being told about her blindness. Her father doesn’t want to break that horrible news to her. Lotte de Beer: “In her blindness Iolanta lives with a magical imagination of everything that surrounds her. The Nutcracker music and the dancers of the Wiener Staatsballett show us Iolanta’s world perception by her inner eye. But there comes a time in life, when you have to decide whether to remain a blind princess or to see the world in all its imperfection.” This production plays on the cutting edge of fantasy and reality, of being a child and being a grown-up, of opera and dance. In short: it’s a family-show to the core.

In this creative, opera-ballet remix of two of Tchaikovsky’s most famous works, the young Iolanta’s story unfolds amid the fantastical colors and entrancing dreamworld of the ever-festive Nutcracker — a twist on the pairing conceived by Tchaikovsky for the ballet’s premiere in 1892!

In 1883, Tchaikovsky discovered the character of Iolanta in the Henrik Hertz novel The Daughter of King René, which tells the story of a blind girl locked away in her father’s castle. King René ensures that she is kept hidden from society — until the arrival of Count Vaudemont, who changes Iolanta’s life and opens her eyes to the world. In this 2022 reimagining from the Wiener Staatsoper, choreographer Andrey Kaydanovskiy combines the one-act opera with the famous ballet, placing Iolanta at the heart of both her original tale and the action of The Nutcracker — first as a prisoner in her own body, and then adrfit in the world of her own imagination as she tries to bring the light out from the shadows.