Automaton for the people

[Ya Sam]

Coppelia
Royal Opera House, London WC2
D'un soir un jour
Sadler's Wells, London EC1

"There is a scene at the beginning of the 19th-century ballet Coppelia when 
Franz, the hero, is flirting with a mechanical doll. Thinking that she is a 
real flesh-and-blood young woman, he preens, smooths his hair and assumes 
his most winning smile. In truth, the part of the doll is played by a real 
dancer and the fact that we in the audience know this as well as those on 
stage gives the scene a slyly erotic quality. In 1870, when the piece had 
its premiere in Paris, the part of Franz was danced by a woman, adding a 
further layer of ambiguity.

The Royal Ballet's version of Coppelia, first staged by Ninette de Valois in 
1954, plays with notions of realness and artificiality throughout. This 
culminates in the moment when, in a workshop populated by automatons, the 
sinister Doctor Coppelius (William Tuckett), attempts to transfer the 
life-force from Franz (Thiago Soares) into a figure whom he thinks to be the 
mechanical doll Coppelia, but is actually Franz's fiancee Swanilda 
(Marianela Nunez) in the doll's clothes.

All three leads are excellent. Tuckett's Coppelius starts off as a likeable 
eccentric; more garden-shed inventor than magus. As the piece progresses, 
Tuckett allows the character to darken. His manipulations of Franz are born 
of a creepy desperation rather than murderous calculation: if he can't have 
a real village girl to love him, then he'll make an android version."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1928227,00.html

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