Did you know the 1892 debut of Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker was not a huge success? It was originally paired with Tchaikovsky's final opera, Iolanta, a fictionalized biography of Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine. Critics found The Nutcracker's dancers "amateurish" and "corpulent," then dismissed the piece itself as "insipid" and "ponderous." Keep in mind, many of these dancers were children! (Thumbs down to you, Pyotr Ilich!) A greatest-hits suite from the ballet enjoyed some success; but The Nutcracker didn't become a holiday fixture till the late 1960s, in the wake of George Balanchine's landmark 1954 production. The ballet as we've come to know it ignores a long flashback, "The Tale of the Hard Nut," in the middle of the E.T.A. Hoffmann original story. That flashback fleshes out the narrative by explaining how the Prince was transformed into the Nutcracker.

Let's back up: the ballet begins at a Christmas Eve celebration. The festivities are interrupted by Councilman Drosselmeyer, who brings magical toys that come to life a few hours later. One of those toys, a Mouse King, wages war against a platoon of gingerbread soldiers led by a wounded Nutcracker. The battle is resolved, and the start of Act II transports us to the Sugar Plum Fairy's Land of Sweets. This is serious stuff, folks. Nuts get well and truly cracked.

The best-known version of the ballet around these parts, of course, is the Maurice Sendak-designed production at Pacific Northwest Ballet, wrapping up as we speak after annual appearances since 1983. (It'll be replaced next year with a version designed by Ian Falconer. The choreography will follow Balanchine's.) Even in decline, the Sendak version (with choreography by Kent Stowell) made over five million dollars last year. Some critics think The Nutcracker is single-handedly keeping ballet alive in America. If so, it's working, and don't think Pacific Northwest Ballet is your only option for catching the Nutcracker in action. The Broadway Center hosts Tacoma City Ballet's 31st production, which restores the "Hard Nut" flashback under the direction of Erin M. Ceragioli. Meanwhile, after a kid-driven run by Studio West Dance Theatre last week, Ballet Northwest continues its own lavish production with a cast of more than 200. Either way, that dastardly Mouse King is cruising for a bruising. Is it proper to wish all those Sugar Plum Fairies the dancers' equivalent of "break a leg," namely "merde?"

THE NUTCRACKER AND THE TALE OF THE HARD NUT, 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, through Dec. 23, Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway, Tacoma, $19-$69, 253.591.5894

THE NUTCRACKER, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through Dec. 21, Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. SE, Olympia, $19-$33, 360.753.8585