Coppélia
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Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuittier and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon a macabre story by E.T.A. Hoffmann entitled "Der Sandmann" ("The Sandman"), published in 1815. The ballet premiered May 25, 1870 at the Paris Opera, with Giuseppina Bozzachi in the title role. Its first flush of success was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris, but eventually it became the most-performed ballet at the Opera Garnier.
The team of Saint-Léon and Nuittier had a previous success with the ballet La Source (1860), for which Délibes had contributed some of the music. The story concerns a mysterious and faintly diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius[1] who has made a life-size dancing doll. It is so life-like that Franz, a village swain is infatuated with it, setting aside his true heart's desire, Swanilde, who in Act II shows him his folly, by dressing as the doll and pretending to come to life. The festive wedding-day divertissements in the village square that occupy Act III are often deleted in modern danced versions, though one of the entrées was the first czardas presented on a ballet stage. If Mary Shelley's Frankenstein represents the dark side of the theme of scientist as creator of life, then Coppelia is the light side. If Giselle is a tragedy set in a peasant village, then Coppélia is a comedy in the same setting. The part of Franz was danced en travestie, a convention that pleased the male members of the Jockey-Club de Paris and was retained in Paris until after World War II.
Giuseppina Bozzacchi, the original Coppélia, a young student dancer just turned sixteen, was expected to have a great career ahead of her but caught cholera during the siege of Paris and died on her seventeenth birthday.
Some influence on this story comes from travelling shows of the late 18th and early 19th centuries starring mechanical automatons. This field of entertainment has been under-documented, but a recent survey of the field is contained in The Mechanical Turk by Tom Standage (2002). These shows were later to also influence Charles Babbage in his invention of the difference engine.
A variation of the Coppelia story is contained in Jacques Offenbach's opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, a fictional work about the same Hoffmann who wrote the story that inspired Coppelia. The opera consists of a prologue, three fantastic tales in which Hoffmann is a participant, and an epilogue. In the first story, based on Der Sandmann, Hoffmann falls in love with a mechanical doll, Olympia, but in this case, the story takes on a melancholy tinge as the doll breaks apart.
Contents |
[edit] Ballet
Act I
- 1 Prelude et Mazurka
- 2 Valse Lente
- 3 Scène
- 4 Mazurka
- 5 Scène
- 6 Ballade de L’Epi
- 7 Thème Slave Varie
- 8 Czardas
- 9 Finale
Act II
- 10 Entr’acte et Valse
- 11 Scène
- 12 Scène
- 13 Musique des Automates
- 14 Scène
- 15 Chanson a Boire et Scène
- 16 Scene et Valse de la Poupeé
- 17 Scène
- 18 Bolero
- 19 Gigue
- 20 Scène
- 21 Marche de la Cloche
Act III
- 22 Introduction
- 23 Valse des Heures
- 24 L’Aurore
- 25 La Priere
- 26 Le Trevail
- 27 L’Hymen
- 28 Le Discorde et la Guerre
- 29 La Paix
- 30 Danse de Fete
- 31 Galop Finale
[edit] Popular culture
Coppélia's Casket (Kopperia no Hitsugi) is the title of opening theme song of the Japanese anime Noir, the tale of two female assassins. Coppélia's Casket makes several references to the story of Coppélia such as, "People are dolls tired from dancing."
Also mentioned is the line "Coppélia's Heartbeat" also translated as "Coppélia's Pulse" something that an automaton would not possess, and neither would one be laid to rest in a casket.
The ballet Coppélia and Giuseppina Bozzacchi's tragic fate are narrated in the novel No Telling (London: Vintage, 2004) by British author Adam Thorpe (*1956). The novel's protagonist, thirteen year-old Gilles, desperately wants to see the ballet because his crush Jocelyne plays a minor part. He researches into the topic in order to impress Jocelyne, who, sadly, turns out to be fed up with ballet in general and Coppélia in particular.
In the anime Princess Tutu, the two part "episode" 16-17 is entitled "Coppelia." Within the episode, the ballet is refrenced when the character Pique/Pike is hypnotized in Mythos'/Mute's presence and begins dancing the puppet-like "Waltz of the Dolls" from Coppélia.
There also is a club in Madrid named Coppelia. The name of the club is possibly inspired by the original play. The club hosts famous DJ's as well as resident DJ's. Nowadays it opens under the name Coppelia 101. It used to advertise with thousands of guitar pick size and shape flyers spread around in the city's streets. The club's motto: "keep Madrid underground" defines its visitors and music to some extent.
[edit] Notes
- ^ This figure is not unlike Hoffmann's sinister Herr Drosselmeyer in "The Nutcracker" or the macabre Svengali-like travelling magician of the same name in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann
