He must have her, though he has sworn his love to Swanilda, who is no dummy, she has her suspicions about him.

But who is that standoffish dishy girl in the window serenely reading a book? Franz speaks directly to us with his mime. A self-contained universe with lots of comely dancing not unlike the first act of Giselle. It may be bright and sunny in the picture-book Central European settlement with its uncomplicated villagers and their merrymaking, but it is that central act of girlish daring that makes me sit up.Īct one is all pretty girls in their red and white embroidered dresses, young men in colour-coordinated garb, all Ruritanian clicking heels, a drinking tavern and green hills in the distance. You all must know the story of the mechanical doll named after her macabre maker Dr Coppélius, and how he is tricked by Swanilda and her girlfriends, and how Swanilda’s betrothed Franz falls for the artificial marionette and almost loses his life. Ninette de Valois, founder of The Royal Ballet, had danced with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and it is her 1954 version (beautiful design by Osbert Lancaster) that has been given a fresh lick of paint for this revival. Even if you don’t know Coppélia, the music is so familiar, so danceable, “so approachable” (according to tonight’s conductor Barry Wordsworth), balm for the tired soul.Ĭreated in 1870 for the Paris Opéra by Arthur Saint-Léon, naturally Petipa made a version in 1884 for Russia, but the one that has come down to the Royal Ballet is the 1894 Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti version, brought to the West by Nicholas Sergeyev fleeing the 1917 Revolution. Tchaikovsky said that if he’d come across Delibes’s music earlier he’d never have undertaken Swan Lake. No traditional Nutcracker this winter at the Royal Opera House, instead we have Coppélia-the Prussian Romantic writer E T A Hoffmann (1776–1822) a rich source ( The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and The Sandman from 1816) for both.

Coppelia royal opera house