Ballet is a complex performing art consisting of story told in music, dance, costumes and scenery but without singing and speaking. There is some similarity to opera, however with the singing replaced by dancing. Moreover, some operas, particularly those of the mid-nineteenth century, contain ballet sections, and recently there has been a trend to create ballets using the music and plots from operas.
Ballet originated as an elaboration of the court social dances of Renaissance Italy. The music was initially mainly just a sort of background music and had a role secondary to the dancing. However, this changed completely beginning with Tchaikovsky, whose stunning music for such ballets as Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker elevated ballet music to an artistic level equal to that of the dancing and thereby made it something that people also desired to hear and see performed even in the absence of the dancing.