The Nutcracker
The newspapers were divided on the ballet's value. The St. Petersburg Gazette wrote "this ballet is the most tedious thing ever seen ... a long way from what ballet music should be." The St. Petersburg News-sheet wrote, "It is hard to say which number is the greatest, for everything from start to finish is beautiful." The New Age wrote that Tchaikovsky's orchestral writing was the work of genius. A ballet lover thought The Nutcracker was the greatest of the three ballets Tchaikovsky had written.