Léo DELIBES (1836-1891)
Coppélia (1870)
Choreography and production by Ninette de Valois, after Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti
Swanilda – Marianela Nuñez, Franz – Vadim Muntagirov, Dr Coppélius – Gary Avis, Coppélia – Ashley Dean, Burgomaster – Christopher Saunders, Innkeeper – Erico Montes, Swanilda’s friends – Mica Bradbury, Isabella Gasparini, Hannah Grennell, Meaghan Grace Hinkis, Romany Pajduk, Leticia Stock, Peasant girls and boys – Annette Buvoli, Lara Turk, Reece Clarke, Nicol Edmonds, Artists of the Royal Ballet, The duke – Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød, Aurora – Claire Calvert, Prayer – Annette Buvoli
Artists of the Royal Ballet
Students of the Royal Ballet School
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Barry Wordsworth
Directed for the screen by Ross MacGibbon
rec. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 29 November and 10 December 2019
Picture format: 1080i High Definition 16:9
Audio format: LPCM 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
All regions
OPUS ARTE Blu-ray OABD7275D [119 mins]
The greatest works of art serve an elevated function. Great works of literature allow us to experience – both vicariously and in complete safety - the actions, thoughts and emotions of others. Great paintings seek to convey something beyond the mere reproduction of what we can already see with our own eyes. Great music may sometimes link us to an elevated spiritual dimension normally absent from our humdrum daily lives.
Not all art, however, aspires to expand our appreciation of the human condition. Some seeks simply to entertain or to amuse. In experiencing it, we are not enjoined to think more deeply, but merely to live a little more pleasurably than we otherwise might.
I’ve always put Coppélia in that second category, seeing Delibes’s ballet simply an early example of the modern-day romcom. Light, frothy and blind to any of life’s problems larger than dealing with an awkwardly irritating neighbour, it is, I’ve thought, little more than an entertaining demonstration of that comforting old adage amor vincit omnia.
Recently, however, I’ve been reconsidering that appraisal after a friend told me that he finds Coppélia disturbing, almost to the point of unwatchability. In so doing, he reminded me of the truism that what’s comic to one person may not necessarily be so to others. Nick Polito famously made that same point when he summarised the light-hearted classic film The wizard of Oz thus: “transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again”. Well, now that you mention it, I guess that you could look at it that way…
It turns out that my friend’s specific issue with Coppélia lies in the treatment meted out to Dr Coppélius. The latter, it’s important to keep in mind, is no Rothbart (Swan lake), Carabosse (Sleeping beauty), Frollo (the lecherous priest of Notre Dame in La Esmeralda) or Dugmanta (the murderous rajah in La bayadère). He does not want to kill, or even harm, anyone. He may well be eccentric - and he’s certainly doddery and rather odd in manner - but that’s not enough to elevate him to the status of an outright villain. All he wants is to be left alone with his dolls and his experiments. Even after being provoked to breaking point, his completely retaliatory actions are simply foolish, fantastical and misguided rather than wicked. And yet, what happens to him? He is belittled, shunned by his fellow villagers, cruelly teased as a lunatic, viciously attacked by a gang of street thugs, has his house broken into, sees his life’s work destroyed by a pack of thoughtless girls and is finally denied proper retributive justice. If there’s a ballet that can be described as glorying in spiteful Schadenfreude and exhibiting contempt for the elderly - albeit in a manner that attempts to excuse itself by adopting a “comic” tone - it’s surely Coppélia.
I suppose, then, that my friend will probably never watch this newly-filmed and released performance. That would, though, be something of a shame for it’s a fine achievement that, with only a few reservations, shows the current Royal Ballet company in very good form.
A satisfying performance of Coppélia will always need a skilled lead dancer to fill the role of the bossy, spunky village girl Swanilda (by the way, do note that it’s not Swanhilda with an H, which is what she’s repeatedly called by commentators in the course of the disc’s accompanying mini-features). Hardly ever off the stage, here Marianela Nuñez gives an excellent account of the role. Some, it’s true, might think that she somewhat overdoes the comic facial mugging and gestures, but this whole production, staged amidst Osbert Lancaster’s wittily cartoon-like sets, aspires to a pantomime-like atmosphere into which Ms Nuñez immerses herself very convincingly. Her solos are enthusiastically and energetically delivered, as are the ensembles where Swanilda cavorts in lively fashion with her girlfriends.
These days Ms Nuñez’s regular Covent Garden partner is Vadim Mutagirov and here he delivers his first performance in the role of Swanilda’s feckless boyfriend Franz (as he charmingly explains in an accompanying feature, “Franz is very young, very naughty – I’m just basically being me”). While Mr Muntagirov’s acting remains something of a work in progress, let’s recognise that Coppélia is hardly Hamlet and admit that we the audience are surely prepared to forgive his thespian deficiencies as long as we get to enjoy his dancing. That seems to get even better with every new production and here he relishes and successfully addresses each successive athletic challenge placed before him. Because the role of Franz was originally performed en travesti by a female dancer, the romance in Coppélia is much subordinated to the comedic elements in the on/off sweethearts’ relationship. Nevertheless, when required to do so Mr Muntagirov behaves convincingly flirtatiously - if not always with his official girlfriend – and, whenever dancing, exhibits a winning degree of charisma that presumably accounts for Swanilda’s otherwise inexplicable forbearance of his libidinous antics.
Gary Avis, meanwhile, gives us an appropriately fussy portrayal of quirky Dr Coppélius, effectively emulating Ms Nuñez in playing up the elements of pantomimic exaggeration and slapstick in which this particular production so clearly delights.
In this account, as in any other, Swanilda’s friends and the rest of the villagers are kept very busy on stage, for, as conductor Barry Wordsworth notes in Nigel Bates’s very useful booklet essay, Coppélia’s national and village dances make up nearly a third of its running time. Delivered idiomatically by the Covent Garden orchestra and energetically by corps de ballet, the famous mazurka, the csárdás and the Act 3 divertissements all go off with buckets of style and immense verve. I may add that, under Mr Wordsworth’s experienced direction, the Royal Opera House orchestra plays with the greatest skill and is, moreover, completely attuned to the dancers’ practical requirements throughout the whole performance.
As already noted, the set for the village square itself is a quite delightful construction, somewhat akin in style to Lancaster’s work for La fille mal gardée. I do, though, have some reservations about the way in which it is lit. At one point there’s what I take to be an injudiciously deployed spotlight that appears to over-illuminate and occasionally bleach out the faces of dancers moving centre-stage. Ms Nuñez is, on a few occasions, particularly affected by that issue. Later on, the lighting is progressively dimmed so as to suggest the progression of time. By the end of the production, however, that effect has, I think, been taken a little too far and, as a result, Act 3’s celebratory shindig falls anticlimactically short of the anticipated festive hoot. In lighting so dull that it would surely leave all but the sharpest-eyed guests struggling to locate the smoked salmon and canapés, the dancers’ sombre blue and grey costumes only serve to emphasise the occasion’s inappropriately downbeat atmosphere. Of course, it might be that I’m missing a trick here and that, by keeping the jollifications so low-key the production is hinting that the union of Swanilda and flirty Franz is doomed from the very start – but, as there’s no other supporting evidence for that particular hypothesis, I’ll just park it with you for now. Having watched the Royal Ballet’s performance several times, I’m inclined to think that the current Bolshoi production, which stages Coppélia’s final Act in conditions of the brightest sunlight and dresses its dancers in strikingly colourful outfits, matches the ballet’s essential mood far more attractively and effectively (review).
Expertly directed by Ross MacGibbon, this is, then, a finely performed account of Delibes’s popular masterpiece. There are, it’s true, a few features of the production that some viewers may find a little disappointing, but, given that it’s been filmed using state-of-the-art technology, it effectively supersedes the much earlier Royal Ballet offering that starred Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta (BBC/Opus Arte DVD OA 0813 D). It will, in any case, offer most of us – if not, perhaps, my friend who’s so concerned about the welfare of poor, put upon Dr Coppélius - a rather welcome winter evening’s entertainment at home.
Rob Maynard
