Ballet comique in three acts premiered on 25th May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra, Paris

Choreography: Arthur Saint-Léon

Music: Léo Delibes

Premiers Rôles

Swanilda: Giuseppina Bozzacchi

Franz: Eugénie Fiocre

Coppelius: M Dauty

Plot

Summary

Acte 1

The story begins during a town festival to celebrate the arrival of a new bell. The town crier announces that, when it arrives, anyone who becomes married will be awarded a special gift of money. Swanilda and Franz plan to marry during the festival. However, Swanilda becomes unhappy with Franz because he seems to be paying more attention to a girl named Coppélia, who sits motionless on the balcony of a nearby house. The house belongs to a mysterious and faintly diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius. Although Coppélia spends all of her time sitting motionless and reading, Franz is mesmerized by her beauty and is determined to attract her attention. Still upset with Franz, Swanilda shakes an ear of wheat to her head: if it rattles, then she will know that Franz loves her. Upon doing this, however, she hears nothing. When she shakes it by Franz’s head, he also hears nothing; but then he tells her that it rattles. However, she does not believe him and runs away heartbroken.

Later on, Dr. Coppelius leaves his house and is heckled by a group of boys. After shooing them away, he continues on without realizing that he dropped his keys in the mêlée. Swanilda finds the keys, which gives her the idea of learning more about Coppélia. She and her friends decide to enter Dr. Coppelius’ house. Meanwhile, Franz develops his own plan to meet Coppélia, climbing a ladder to her balcony.

Acte 2

Swanilda and her friends find themselves in a large room filled with people. However, the occupants aren’t moving. The girls discover that, rather than people, these are life-size mechanical dolls. They quickly wind them up and watch them move. Swanilda also finds Coppélia behind a curtain and discovers that she, too, is a doll.

Dr. Coppelius returns home to find the girls. He becomes angry with them, not only for trespassing but for also disturbing his workroom. He kicks them out and begins cleaning up the mess. However, upon noticing Franz at the window, Coppélius invites him in. The inventor wants to bring Coppélia to life but, to do that, he needs a human sacrifice. With a magic spell, he will take Franz’s spirit and transfer it to Coppélia. After Dr. Coppelius proffers him some wine laced with sleeping powder, Franz begins to fall asleep. The inventor then readies his magic spell.

However, Dr. Coppelius did not expel all the girls: Swanilda is still there, hidden behind a curtain. She dresses up in Coppélia’s clothes and pretends that the doll has come to life. She wakes Franz and then winds up all the mechanical dolls to aid their escape. Dr. Coppelius becomes confused and then saddened when he finds a lifeless Coppélia behind the curtain.

Acte 3

Swanilda and Franz are about to make their wedding vows when the angry Dr. Coppelius appears, claiming damages. Dismayed at having caused such an upset, Swanilda offers Dr. Coppelius her dowry in return for his forgiveness. However, Franz tells Swanilda to keep her dowry and offers to pay Dr. Coppelius instead. At that point, the mayor intervenes and gives Dr. Coppelius a bag of money, which placates him. Swanilda and Franz are married and the entire town celebrates by dancing.

History

Original Production

The ballet’s first flush of success was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris (which also led to the early death of Giuseppina Bozzacchi, on her 17th birthday), but eventually it became the most-performed ballet at the Opéra.

Modern-day productions are traditionally derived from the revivals staged by Marius Petipa for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg in the late 19th century. Petipa’s choreography was documented in the Stepanov method of choreographic notation at the turn of the 20th century. These notations were later used to stage the St. Petersburg version for such companies as the Vic-Wells Ballet (precursor of today’s Royal Ballet).

The part of Franz was danced en travesti by Eugénie Fiocre, a convention that pleased the male members of the Jockey-Club de Paris and was retained in Paris until after World War II.

Though the ballet was a huge success, the third act with its Fête de la cloche was not well received at its première, as many criticised the divertissement’s length and irrelevance to the plot. In light of this, Louis Perrin, the Director of the Paris Opéra at the time, ordered for the number to be shortened for the second performance, and by 1872 the entirety of the third act was omitted. Two-act stagings would become the norm, both in Paris and when the ballet was exported, with few stagings choosing to retain the third act.

Selected Revivals

4 October 1876

Location: Wiener Hofoper, Vienna

Staged by Karl Telle for Bertha Linda with Henriette Mauthner en travesti as Franz and Louis Frappart as Dr Coppélius. As was the custom in Paris by this time, the ballet was staged in two acts, with the third act omitted. 

From 7 January 1877 (the ballet’s tenth performance in Vienna), the Gigue was omitted from the second act, with Swanilda only dancing the Boléro (called the Manola in Vienna). This two-act staging would become the standard format of the ballet in German-speaking countries, with the Gigue continuing to be omitted from the second act. 

Matilda Kschessinskaya would be invited to Vienna in the spring of 1903, and would make her début on the stage of the Wiener Hofoper in Coppélia on 20 March 1903. During her engagement in Vienna, Kschessinskaya would also dance in Excelsior, Harlekin als Elektriker and Wiener Walzer.

1879

Location: Nationaltheater, Munich

Staged by Franz Fenzl in two acts, with both the Gigue in the second act and the entirety of the third act omitted, in accordance with the usual staging.

1881

Location: Königliche Oper, Berlin

Staged by Paul Taglioni for Antonietta Dell’Era. 

5 February [O.S. 24 January] 1882

Location: Imperial Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow

Staged by Joseph Hansen. Franz remained a travesti rôle until Vasily Tikhomirov’s début as Franz in 1896.

8 November 1884

Location: The Empire Theatre, London

Staged by A. Bertrand for Alice Holt as Swanilda and Mlle Sismondi en travesti as Franz. The ballet was reduced to one act.

7 December [O.S. 25 November] 1884

Location: Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, St Petersburg

Staged by Marius Petipa for Varvara Nikitina with Pavel Gerdt as Franz. For this revival, Petipa notably restored the third act with its Fête de la cloche. As part of his revisions, La Paix was reworked into a Pas de Deux for Franz and Swanilda, with the Danse de fête being retained as a variation for Swanilda. Franz does not seem to have danced a variation, but by the 1890s one would be interpolated for him.

1885

Location: Teatro alla Scala, Milan

Staged as Coppelia o La Fanciulla Dagli Occhi di Smalto in two acts and three scenes. The ballet would be revived in 1889.

By the 1894 revival, the ballet was staged in two acts, with both the Gigue in the first scene of the second act and the entirety of the second scene of the second act omitted (similar to the standard version outside of Russia). This staging was retained for the revivals of 1896 (with Carlotta Brianza as Swanilda), 1897 and 1908.

8 February [O.S. 26 January] 1894

Location: Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg

Staged by Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti for Pierina Legnani.

January 1897

Location: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels

Staged for Sarah Nicholson. Nicholson had been invited to Brussels as a guest première danseuse for six weeks from late January to early March of 1897. In addition to Coppelia, she also danced in Pierrot Macabre.

Summer 1897

Location: Her Majesty’s Theatre, London

Staged by Leonardo Tavano. Coppelia was the first ballet given at the so-called “Fourth Theatre,” the construction of which had been completed in 1897. Tavano retained much of Thompson’s choreography (he had in fact asked Richard Hague to send a balletmaster from Covent Garden to set the work, a request which was granted), but revised some of the dances. The ballet would remain on and off in the repertory of the theatre. 

14 May 1906

Location: The Empire Theatre of Varieties, London

Staged by Alexandre Genée for his niece Adeline Genée. 

Genée had continually requested the theatre management to stage a classical ballet for her, but management had continually refused to do so, rejecting her proposals of Giselle due to the fact that it lacked a happy ending and Coppelia because it was “too old”.

This state of affairs continued until 1905, when, during the discussions around the renewal of her contract, Genée refused to sign on unless she could dance in Coppelia, proposing her uncle Alexandre Genée to stage it. Management eventually relented, and so Coppelia was to be staged. 

Genée’s performances in Coppélia (in the two-act staging that was more common at the time) were a triumph, and could arguably be considered her greatest rôle. This was not Genée’s first attempt at Swanilda, as she had previously danced the rôle in Munich and Copenhagen. Her lightness and comedic timing were lauded with praise, in addition to her expressive acting opposite Fred Farren’s Dr Coppélius, especially in the second act. Of the performances D. L. Murray would later recall the “pathetic derangement of the aged Coppélius amid the wreckage of his automata” at the end of the ballet.

As was common in two-act stagings, Swanilda only danced the Boléro in the workshop of Dr Coppélius, with the Écossaise customarily omitted. However, the ending was modified, once Franz had recovered his senses and the lovers had been reconciled, Dr Coppélius was compensated with a purse of gold. The Burgomaster and the villagers then arrived, and the ballet closed with a galop led by Genée, presumably the Galop Final from the third act.

Max Beerbohm saw Genée as Swanilda, and wrote of her performances:

“Perfect though she is in the haute école, she has by some miracle preserved her own self. She was born a comedian, and a comedian she remains, light and liberal as foam. A mermaid were not a more surprising creature than she — she of whom one half is as that of an authentic ballerina, whilst the other is that of a most intelligent, most delightfully human actress. A mermaid were, indeed, less marvellous in our eyes.

She would not be able to diffuse any semblance of humanity into her tail. Madame Genée’s intelligence seems to vibrate to her very toes. Her dancing, strictliest [sic] classical though it is, is a part of her acting. And her acting, moreover, is of so fine a quality that she makes the old ineloquent conventions of gesture tell their meaning to me, and tell them so exquisitely that I quite forget my craving for words.”

10 June 1908

Location: The Empire Theatre of Varieties, London

Revival of Genée’s production.

London Revivals

1885 Revival

In 1885 the ballet was revived by William Thompson for Isabella Velluti as Swanilda. It was Thompson’s belief that, due to the ballet’s great success in Paris, it would please the London audience. Management were on board as was Velluti, so the revival proceeded.

It was decided that Franz would be danced by a man, Samuel Penrose, not by a woman en travesti as had been done in Paris. Another change made by Thompson was the restoration of the third act with its Fête de la cloche.

Rôles

Swanilda: Isabella Velluti

Franz: Samuel Penrose

Musical Revisions

Few musical revisions were made by François Bardet, as Thompson considered the ballet to need little reworking. 

The principal change was La Paix in the third act, which was expanded into a Pas de Quatre, becoming the new grand pas of the third act. Delibes’ original music for La Paix was used as the adage and the Danse de Fête was used as a variation for Swanilda, as was done in Paris. The pas was completed by two supplemental additions by Bardet: an Allegretto for the two female coryphées and a Coda. Franz did not dance a variation in the pas.

Résumé des Scènes et Danses

Acte 1

1) Prélude

2) Scène Première – Valse

3) Scène

4) Mazurka

5) Scène

6) Ballade de l’Épi

7) Thème Slave Varié

a) Thème

b) 1re Variation 

c) 2e Variation

d) 3e Variation

e) 4e Variation

f) 5e Variation – Finale

8) Czardasz

9) Scène Finale

Acte 2

10) Entr’acte

11) Scène

12) Scène – Les Automates

13) Scène

14) Chanson à Boire et Scène

15) Scène

16) Valse de la Poupée

17) Scène – Swanilda et Dr Coppelius

18) Boléro

19) Gigue

20) Scène Finale

Acte 3

21) Marche de la cloche

Grand Divertissement – La Fête de la cloche

22) Valse des heures

23) Variation – l’Aurore

24) Variation – La Prière

25) Le travail – La Fileuse

26) L’Hymen – Noce Villageoise

27) La Discorde et la Guerre

28) La Paix (Pas de Quatre)

a) Andante

b) Allegretto

c) Variation de Swanilda – Danse de Fête

d) Coda 

29) Galop Final

1895 Revival

In 1895 the ballet was revived for Sarah Nicholson. Thompson had wanted to revive the ballet the previous year for Marta Draeger, but instead The Devil to Pay and Esmeralda were chosen for her last season at Covent Garden.

It was decided to replace the Pas de Quatre with a Pas de Deux for Swanilda and Franz, for which Auguste Péchard provided the music. However, for reasons that are still unclear to us today, it was decided to return to the original Pas de Quatre, leading to Péchard’s supplemental pas being discarded, despite the fact that Péchard had completed the music (though he had only begun the orchestration). Férat was allowed to interpolate a new variation as Franz (following the Allegretto and preceding the Variation de Swanilda), choosing to dance the cavalier’s variation from the Pas de Distraction from The Corsair. The pas would later resurface in 1900, where Nicholson would interpolate the pas into the third act of The Devil to Pay.

The third act of Coppelia would later be given as part of the 1903 State Performance for the Visit of the French President. Nicholson would reprise her rôle as Swanilda, interpolating the Pas Robert that had been written for Draeger in the 1890 revival of The Wayward Daughter to replace the Pas de Quatre.

Rôles

Swanilda: Sarah Nicholson

Franz: Antoine Férat

1908 Revival

In 1908 the ballet was revived by Richard Hague for Louise Grignon with Jane Wheaton as second cast.

The Pas de Quatre was retained for the revival, and the Meisenburg notations for the ballet were made during the 1908 rehearsal process. The only notable difference from the 1895 staging was that a new variation was interpolated for Franz in the Pas de Quatre, replacing the Corsair variation added in 1895 for Férat. The new variation chosen was the Variation de Pépio from the Grand Pas des Tziganes from Messager’s score for The Two Pigeons, which had been revived by Hague in 1898. As such, it was Messager’s variation that was notated in the pas, not the Corsair variation.