Delibes: Coppélia (DVD) – Bolshoi Ballet

Composer: Léo Delibes
Artists: Margarita Shrayner, Artem Ovcharenko, Alexey Loparevitch, Corps de Ballet, Orchestra & Chorus of the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre
Choreographer: Sergey Vikharev, after Marius Petipa & Enrico Cecchetti
Conductor: Pavel Sorokin
Format: NTSC
Number of Discs: 1
Region: All Regions
Studio: Bel Air Classiques
DVD Release Date: April 19, 2019
Run Time: 100 minutes

Léo Delibes’s Coppélia is not only a collection of fine dances. It is primarily an abrasive and sardonic comedy, which is somewhat unusual in the world of classical ballet. But most importantly, it is a comedy for which excellent music was composed. Tchaikovsky’s assessment of Delibes’s ballet scores, allegedly capable of overshadowing the choreography itself, is well known: “What beauty, what elegance, what richness of melody, rhythm and harmony!” It is not surprising that music from this ballet should be performed, for its own merits, during concerts.

The main theme of this light-hearted ballet is taken from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s anything but joyful novellas – mainly from The Sandman. In Hoffmann’s tale, the young man’s infatuation with the doll ends tragically, while in the ballet, the lively and energetic Swanilda (Frantz’s fiancée) is able to outwit the old Coppélius, the cunning inventor of the “Girl with the enamel eyes,” and free her lover from the doll’s poisonous charm.

Coppélia has a rich selection of dance melodies based on folklore, and especially Slavic and Eastern European themes. Marius Petipa and Enrico Cecchetti adapted the choreography for the Russian stage, but their version fell out of interest during the 20th century until 2009. It is here interpreted by the Bolshoi Ballet’s finest dancers: Margarita Shrayner as the witty Swanilda, and Artem Ovcharenko the love-sick Frantz.

Read More