It should be recalled that Drosselmayer, as we know him in Hoffmann, not only manipulates time; he has escaped sequential time. We may assume, therefore, that all aspects of time - past, present, and future - are to Drosselmayer the present. He perceives as one thought - one duma - what requires an act-and-a-half to present on stage. In Act II of the ballet, we are simply given the opportunity to share in Drosselmayer's thought. But Drosselmayer's very timelessness (one might wish to call it 'timefulness') implies a vast human experience, and the sense of sorrow that comes with it; a sorrow that Tchaikovsky no doubt felt on the ship taking him to America. 'Be sure,' wrote Alexandre Benois to his son, who was preparing a new production of Nutcracker, 'that the actor of Drosselmayer's part is well-acquainted with sadness.' It is not a sinister Drosselmayer whose thoughts are brought before us on stage, but a pensive or sad Drosselmayer, whose sadness is born not of a specific event, but of being too much of this world.
Confiturembourg, in short, may be construed as Drosselmayer's duma. That it happens to be a nostalgic, childlike vision should not lead us to misinterpret his thoughts as meaningless or childish.
"On Meaning in 'Nutcracker'" by Roland John Wiley in Dance Research, Vol 3, No 1, Page 3-28.
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