The Seven Lively Arts

This short-lived anthology series was the first to present a television production (albeit abridged) of Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker". It was the Balanchine version, telecast only three and a half years after it premiered on-stage. There were more productions of "The Nutcracker" on CBS than on any of the other then-existing commercial networks over the next thirty years. But it would not be until the late 1960s that the ballet would become an annual tradition in the United States.