Coppélia ballet. Music by Léo Delibes. Libretto by Charles Nuitter and Arthur Saint-Léon after E.T.A. Hoffmann. Choreography by Sergey Vikharev and Vladimir Grigoriev after Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti. Recorded 2018 at the Bolshoi Theater. Stars Margarita Shrayner (Swanilda), Artem Ovcharenko (Frantz), Alexey Loparevich (Coppelius), Xenia Averina, Daria Bochkova, Bruna Cantanhede Gaglianone, Antonina Chapkina, Anastasia Denisova, Elizaveta Kruteleva, Svetlana Pavlova, and Yulia Skvortsova (Eight friends); Nadezhda Blagova (Coppélia [Automaton]), Alexander Fadeyechev (Lord of Manor), Yuri Ostrovsky (Burgomaster), Nikolay Mayorov (Chronos), Oksana Sharova, Alexander Vodopetov, Ekaterina Besedina, and Dmitry Ekaterinin (Mazurka), Kristina Karasyova and Vitali Biktimirov (Czardasz), Anastasia Denisova (Aurora), Antonina Chapkina (Prayer), Daria Bochkova, Ksenia Averina, Maria Mishina, Stanislava Postnova, and Tatiana Tiliguzova (Work), and Elizaveta Kruteleva (Folly). Pavel Sorokin conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Bolshoi Theater. Scenography by Boris Kaminsky; costumes by Tatiana Noginova; lighting design by Damir Ismagilov; archive research and coordination by Pavel Gershenzon. Directed for TV by Isabel Julien; produced by François Duplat. Released 2019, disc has 5.1 HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+
Finally we get a traditional version of the comic ballet Coppelia, and this from the Bolshoi, which has probably fielded more Coppelia artillery here than has ever previously been deployed. (This BelAir disc is a French product, so the title in French is Coppélia. We spell the name here, however, without an accent on the “e” in the name.)
A curious thing: there is no keepcase booklet. Credits and technical information is printed on the keepcase cover art and on the back of the front cover (that you read through the clear plastic of the keepcase). There is none of the editorial material we normally get with our HDVDs. We bought this title from Presto in England, and we asked Presto if the booklet was missing. Well, Presto fulfillment has two Clares: Clare Plumley and Clare Preston (we’re not making this up). Both of them went to work on the case and ordered another copy of the title for us. But it was also missing a booklet. So the two Clares jumped on BelAir and learned that the title doesn’t come with a booklet. Mystery solved: no defect — just cost cutting. Try getting this kind of service from Amazon!
The harvest is over and it’s time to celebrate and to have weddings! The villagers put on their best clothes for dancing:
Swanilda (Margarita Shrayner) and Frantz (Artem Ovcharenko) are sweethearts, but Swanilda is a little worried. She asks Frantz if the stalk of wheat says that he loves her, but he doesn’t hear anything!
Lately Frantz has noticed the beautiful girl Coppelia who sits all day long on the balcony of the home of her father, Coppelius. Note this ballet is named for the girl, not the father. Poor Frantz doesn’t see that she mostly sits still and rarely stirs, but then with strange, jerky motions:
Each clan has its own distinctive costumes, and the Bolshoi brings on wave after wave of girls (and their guys). But Coppelia seems to be bored with the dancing and retreats from the balcony to the interior of her father’s house:
Yet another clan shown below:
Dusk arrives. Coppelius goes to the tavern to celebrate. Swanilda (with a bunch of girlfriends) slips into the house to find out more about Swanilda’s mysterious rival. After riotous confusion, Swanilda discovers that Coppelia is just a giant doll!
And the house is full of other dolls that spring into action on command, including two knights in shining armor who fight each other with broadswords:
Meanwhile, Frantz is also curious about Coppelia, and he climbs a ladder to the balcony to try to meet her. Coppelius (Alexey Loparevich) catches Frantz and drugs him. He plans to steal Frantz’s soul, give it to Coppelia, and finally bring his masterpiece to life!
Swanilda decides to play a trick on Coppelius, whose eyeglass prescription is out of date. She puts on Coppelia’s dress and pretends to be an automaton with jerky motions. Shrayner proves to be an excellent actress with comic flair as she masters the odd art of moving awkwardly:
Coppelius is astonished and delighted. He’s finally stumbled onto the secret of life! Just to be sure, he checks for a heartbeat. It’s there!
After more hilarious confusion, Swanilda shows Franz the truth:
Frantz has learned his lesson and proposes marriage:
Actually, it’s a mass wedding day with many other couples like the one below tying the knot:
The Lord of the Manor and the Mayor arrive with gifts for everybody and more dancing at the Court of Father Time:
Soloists dance the roles of Dawn, Prayer, Work, and Folly. In the next two shots below, Antonita Chapkina leaves an indelible emotional impression as Prayer:
The grand pas de deux for Swanilda and Frantz ends with the move below that I’ve never seen before:
Since there is no keepcase booklet, I thought I should add a few more comments about the disc. The next shot below comes between Act 1 and Act 2. Some of the dancers come out for a curtain call. In Russian ballet (and opera) performers often parade in front of the curtain and take applause before the show and between acts. It keeps the audience occupied while the stagehands work, etc. The Russians also like to put up signs. The sign below isn’t hard to figure out — it says Coppelia:
The sign below is a bit tougher and says something like “Celebration of the Bell”. The Lord of the Manor has given the village a new church bell in gratitude for the successful harvest:
Below the grandeur of the billion dollar Bolshoi:
In The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman (published 1817), Coppelius is a mad scientist and demon who is trying, Lucifer-like, to usurp the power of God by creating human life. (Mary Shelley published Frankenstein one year later in 1818.) By 1870, when the Coppelia ballet premiered, the evil character had morphed from a monster to a comical and absent-minded professor (even if he was still a threat to anyone with a body part or soul he needed).
All you need to know about the libretto of this Bolshoi Coppelia is set out below in screenshots from the disc:
This gets a rare A+. The stupendous performance by the Bolshoi and the pristine video recording by Isabelle Julien are flawless. I did a Wonk Worksheet for video content. Julien’s pace speeds up during the narrative scenes and slows down for the innumerable dance numbers. The overall pace is 13+ seconds per clip and 69% of the cuts show the whole bodies of the dancers. This avoids any complaint of DVDitis and makes this title one of the best dance recordings ever produced. Delibes’ music is a cut below Tchaikovsky canon, but it is relentlessly interesting, cheerful, and appropriate. And, of course, the Bolshoi orchestra is fabulous and carefully recorded here playing in their new home.
Here is an official clip from BelAir:
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