The Nutcracker is about an adventure taken on by a young girl, Clara, and a life-sized nutcracker that has come to life. Together they travel to mystical lands while battling the mouse king. The Russian ballet initially received mixed reviews. Some critics found the choreography chaotic and the performances inconsistent. Tchaikovsky’s score, however, was met with more enthusiasm. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker is based on a short story written by a German author, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman, called “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”.