Royal Ballet - Coppelia

Joanne · **Posted:** Tue Jul 30, 2002 10:15 pm

Review in The Times. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>THE current Royal Ballet season is drawing to a close this week with a revival of Coppélia in a production first staged by the company’s founder, Ninette de Valois, in 1954 (the original dates back to 1870). Unlike Don Quixote, its flat and fusty summer-season companion, Coppélia wears its age with pride. Of course no one today would premiere Osbert Lancaster’s pop-up-book sets, nor opt for his colour palette, but these Bavarian village designs have an integrity of their own. Something no one could possibly claim for the worn-out, unimaginative sets and costumes foisted on us in Don Quixote. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,685-369839,00.html" TARGET=_blank> MORE </A>And in The Standard. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Coppelia is often described as a ballet about young love, a model for married life, but it is also a ballet about old age. The story of the genius toymaker, his life-like doll, and the on-off romance between Swanilda and Franz, certainly reveals the follies of youth, although the barbs are poisoned for the delusions of age. Franz is a skirt-chaser, a sucker for a sweet smile, and the sight of him sneaking into Coppelia's room, ladder in hand, makes a fool of the man. Most of his dignity and all of his honour fly out the window as he climbs through it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/dance_review.html?in_review_id=653982&in_review_text_id=625185" TARGET=_blank> MORE </A>[This message has been edited by Joanne (edited July 31, 2002).]

Joanne · **Posted:** Wed Jul 31, 2002 9:51 pm

Review in The FT. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>As the Royal Ballet season ignominiously ends - last Tuesday's shaming Golden Jubilee Gala the measure of the company's decline from grace - this closing week's performances of Coppélia serve only to show how far that decline has gone. The production is a near half-century old, honest and unfussed in treating of a masterpiece (and of no other Royal classic staging can one now say that) and, properly cast and cared for, it reveals every sunny moment in this sunniest of ballets. It also reveals, because she was its producer, Ninette de Valois's vital and unambiguous view of the staple repertory which she knew was essential for a national ballet. She sought directness of expression, precision in step, serious challenges for a company's artistry, and a veneration of the academic language which was not too conservative in seeking to naturalise it for British dancers. Across five decades of performance, dozens of Royal Ballet artists - from such ballerinas as Fonteyn, May. Nerina, Beriosova, Page, Sibley, to adorable aspirants at Saturday matinees - sparkled in Coppélia, charmed, won laurels and bouquets.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1028126217446&p=1016625900929" TARGET=_blank> MORE </A>

Joanne · **Posted:** Sun Aug 04, 2002 7:05 am

Review in the Sunday Times. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>After Marianela Nuñez’s nagging Kitri in Don Quixote, Jane Burn goes even further in Coppelia as surely the most scornful Swanilda ever. When she catches Johan Kobborg’s Franz making eyes at the beautiful doll, Coppelia, she eschews the customary show of jealousy for a mocking suggestion that nobody so lovely could possibly fall for a klutz like him. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-370680,00.html" TARGET=_blank> MORE </A>

Joanne · **Posted:** Tue Aug 06, 2002 2:21 am

Review in The Guardian. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Franz is one of those ballet heroes loved for his vices as well as his virtues. As the village flirt in Coppelia, Franz galvanises the comic energy of the stage around him with his moral shortcomings. He has to be too swaggeringly sure of his own macho appeal, too slack about his drinking limits and too short on brain cells if the jokes in Coppelia are to fly. And one of the reasons Friday's performance fell flat was that Yohei Sasaki, standing in for an injured Johan Persson, was altogether too nice in the role. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,769708,00.html" TARGET=_blank> MORE </A>

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Thu Aug 08, 2002 9:33 am

Coppelia
By Gavin Roebuck from The Stage

Fittingly the Royal Ballet's season ends with founder Ninette de Valois' production of this popular narrative ballet.

First soloist Jane Burn brought classroom precision and neat footwork to the principal role of Swanilda. As the ballet progressed she began to bring more personality to the role and is beginning to blossom as an artist. As Franz she was not well served with Johan Kobborg as a partner, the final pas de deux having off-balance pirouettes, a fudged lift and forcing her to go off-pointe in one section. Kobborg, however, was exciting in his solo with good beaten jumps, high elevation and a sparking personality.

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kurinuku · **Posted:** Tue Oct 17, 2006 7:46 am

Quote:

Enchantment with a few glitches in the machinery
by MARK MONAHAN for the Daily Telegraph
published: October 16, 2006

Nuñez had the edge on sparkly glamour and physical strength, but Roberta Marquez brought a necessary miffed-little-madam pluckiness to the role that was largely missing in Nuñez's too-smiley interpretation. As Swanilda's randy dolt of a boyfriend, Soares had the edge on line, swagger and finesse, but Samodurov on athleticism, elevation and likeability.

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Coppelia
by JUDITH MACKRELL for the Guardian
published: October 17, 2006

Women rarely get to control events in 19th-century ballet, unless they are very, very bad. But in Coppelia, it is clear from the beginning that the ballet's mischievous, romantic heroine is in charge. It is Swanilda who sets up the story in the mime prologue, and thus determines our sympathies. And this gives the ballerina performing the role a unique chance to take the audience into the palm of her hand.

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kurinuku · **Posted:** Wed Oct 25, 2006 5:23 am

Quote:

Coppélia, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London
by CLEMENT CRISP for the Financial Times
published: October 22, 2006

I am a believer in the Thomas Beecham “keep the buggers on the hop” school of ballet conducting. The onward rhythmic momentum of a dance score, the vital illumination of the steps by the music’s phrasing and sonorities, can be sustained only if the conductor understands score and dance equally.

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Coppélia, Covent Garden, London
by CLEMENT CRISP for the Financial Times
published: October 24, 2006

I do not recall a happier, more intelligent, more delectably danced performance of Covent Garden’s Coppélia in many years. On Friday night Marianela Nuñez was Swanilda, Thiago Soares her Frantz and William Tuckett the Coppélius, and this ballet was made bright and joyous as it has not been since its earliest showings, when Nadia Nerina and David Blair gloriously led it.

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Royal Ballet - Coppelia

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