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Coppélia, ou La Fille aux Yeux d'Émail. Ballet in 2 acts and 3 scenes, premiered at Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra, Paris, 25 May 1870.
Scenario : Charles Nuitter
Music : Léo Délibes
Choreography : Arthur Saint-Léon
Scenery : Charles Antoine Cambon, Édouard Desplechin and Jean Baptiste Lavastre
Swanilda : Giuseppina Bozzacchi
Frantz : Eugénie Fiocre [travesti role]
Coppélius : François-Édouard Dauty
The Burgomaster : Edmond Cornet
(Please click the thumbnails below to view larger image)
The three ballets which Léo Delibes (1836-1891) composed for the Paris Opéra between 1866 and 1876 marked a turning point in this popular composer's career. He had previously been known as a composer of opérettes, several of which had achieved conspicuous success from 1856 at Offenbach's Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens.
La Source, or Naïla (1866) was a direct result of Delibes's appointment as chorus master at the Opéra in 1864, and of the Director Émile Perrin's quick perception of his outstanding musicianship. This was in fact a shared commission, the outer themes being given to the established ballet composer Léon Minkus, but it was the Delibes contribution which received dominant critical acclaim and was no doubt partly responsible for keeping the work in repertory for ten years. 'The whole of the score could have been entrusted to the young composer' wrote the critic of Le Ménestrel.
Planning for Coppélia, or La Fille aux Yeux d'Émail, began shortly afterwards, the scenerio being, like that for La Source, by Charles Nuitter, the Opéra's archivist. Based loosely on E. T. A. Hoffmann's story Der Sandmann (1816) and developed again in collaboration with the remarkable dancer, choreographer and virtuoso violinist Arthur Saint-Léon (1821-1870), this took some three years to reach the stage. However it then earned Delibes the most significant triumph of his career and together with the third ballet Sylvia, or La Nymphe de Diane (1876) established his major historical importance as founder of modern "symphonic" ballet music.
In developing Coppélia's leading role of Swanilda, Saint-Léon worked with the young company dancer Léontine Beaugrand, who was however considered by Perrin to be an insufficient public 'draw'. After a further rehearsal period with Adèle Grantsova, a star ballerina from St Petersburg who had appeared in the first revival of La Source but was now to reject what she considered too light a role, the management made another inspired decision. Giuseppina Bozzacchi, a fifteen-year-old Italian currently studying in Paris, appeared to have many of the right qualities and after a year's training was to more than justify their confidence. In what was her stage debut her exquisite dancing and total identification with the part brought her as well as the ballet rave reviews. (The Revue littéraire et artistique called her 'A Taglioni of the future'; see below for some examples of English contemporary reporting.) Swanilda's fiancé, a travesti role, was danced by Eugénie Fiocre, who had taken one of the two female leads in La Source. Incidentally the ballet was preceded on the first and subsequent nights by Weber's opera Der Freischütz : 19th century audiences had little problem with four- hour programmes of music and stage spectacle.
Sadly the initial run was interrupted after 18 performances by a serious of tragedies. Saint-Léon was present at the performance on 1 September but collapsed and died the following day. Meanwhile the Franco-Prussian War had broken out on 19 July; it was to cause the closure of the theatre in early Autumn. Then Bozzacchi succumbed to smallpox and on 23 November, her 17th birthday she herself died. (Two days later Delibes played the organ at her funeral, incorporating melodies from Coppélia in an improvised Funeral March. She was buried at Montmartre.) When the ballet could be revived in October 1871 the role of Swanilda was at last to pass to Beaugrand. She achieved her own triumph and continued to dance the part for many years, but on 29 October 1873 the Salle le Peletier burned down and caused a further interruption. (Sylvia was the first important new work to be staged in the Palais Garnier, opened in 1875.)
For Delibes however the sequel was entirely positive. After resigning his organ and choir-training employments in 1871 he was able to devote himself solely to composition.
The ballet had to wait until 1906 for its first UK performance (Empire Theatre, London, 14 May 1906 with Adeline Genée as Swanilda). It entered the repertoire of the Vic-Wells Ballet (later Royal Ballet) at Sadler's Wells Theatre on 21 March 1933 based on choreography by L. I. Ivanov and with Lydia Lopokova (and in later performances Ninette de Valois) as Swanilda. In this 150th anniversary year it has been seen at the Royal Opera House in De Valois's 1954 production.
The Graphic, 4 June 1870
The Manchester Evening News, 7 June 1870.
The Graphic, 9 July 1870
We would like to pay tribute to the ballet historian Ivor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD (1920-2018) on the 100th anniversary of his birth, 14 April, 2020. His exhaustive research into more than two centuries of ballet will always remain fundamental to any studies of the period.
The Ballet of the Second Empire 1858-1870, London, 1953 has, of course, guided us in the mounting of the present display.