The music of The Nutcracker debuted months before the ballet. In March of 1892, Pyotr Tchaikovsky conducted The Nutcracker Suite at the St. Petersburg branch of the Musical Society.
The first performance of the ballet itself was held as a double premiere together with Tchaikovsky’s last opera, Iolanta, on 18 December 1892, at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.
This suite became very popular and for while was more admired than the ballet. The suite features the Nutcracker’s most famous sequences including the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy,” “Russian Dance,” “Arabian Dance,” and “Waltz of the Flowers.”