Exhibition "Tasty Stories of the New Year"

About exhibition

New Year is a beloved holiday for both children and adults, and sweets and desserts are indispensable attributes of New Year's gifts. The exhibition will introduce works by composers who wrote excellent music dedicated to various kinds of treats. December is the season of the most New Year-ish ballet in the world, The Nutcracker. In the run-up to New Year and Christmas, P.I. Tchaikovsky's music is heard in many theaters around the world. Audiences, together with the brave Nutcracker and Masha, travel to visit the Sugar Plum Fairy in her Kingdom of Sweets and the magical town “Confiturenburg,” delighting in the splendor of the "Confectionery Divertissement": the Spanish Dance "Chocolate," the Russian Dance "Trepak," the Arabian Dance "Coffee," and the Chinese Dance "Tea." Coffee, chocolate and tea long ago ceased to be exotic curiosities for us — yet there was a time when entire empires fell because of them, secret agents undertook covert expeditions, speedboat races took place, and trading companies amassed fantastical wealth. Tasty Stories will recount all the twists and turns of the origins and consumption traditions of these treats. The exhibition aims to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of a magical celebration, in the joyful anticipation of long-awaited gifts and a cozy tea party with beloved sweets at home, accompanied by fascinating stories about chocolate, coffee, tea, and candies. The core of the museum exhibition will consist of original items from the collections of the Russian National Museum of Music: materials related to P.I. Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker (autograph scores, costume and set design sketches, audio recordings); scores from the "Chocolate Suite" by composer Karl Feldman; and photographs of productions of J.S. Bach's "Coffee Cantata."