Scottish Ballet, Coppélia review ★★★★★

Men’s dream of creating the ideal woman goes back to time immemorial. In the 19th-century ballet Coppélia, the slightly sinister old doll-maker Dr Coppelius uses mechanics to create a life-like doll, which he hopes to turn into a real-life woman.

In Scottish Ballet’s Coppélia we’re well into 21st-century Silicon Valley, and Dr Coppelius is the young, go-getting CEO of the NuLife, a company dedicated to developing Artificial Intelligence, AI.

Coppélia is his most promising invention, an AI doll set to become indistinguishable from her human counterparts, to the point of exhibiting all-too-human flaws.

In both cases, though, humanity prevails, if chastened and wiser, through the wiles of a resourceful woman, Swanhilda.

As befits a work set so firmly in the 21st century, Scottish Ballet’s Coppélia is a slick, visually arresting production, where the skilful use of video technology and real-time film images blend with live action, creating simultaneous planes that mix real and virtual in an oh-so-modern way.


Principal Constance Devernay in Scottish Ballet's Coppélia. Photo: Andy Ross
The ballet’s concept, look and choreography bear the hallmarks of the award-winning duo Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright, aka Jess and Morgs, with the use of film in live performance very much a constant of their stage productions.

Dramaturg and writer Jeff James is responsible for the clarity of the story-telling aided by the sparing use of the spoken word – Swanhilda is a journalist sent to interview Dr Coppelius, and snatches of the interview, where he reveals his god-like ambition, are played on voice-over, while Coppelius and Swanhilda face off in his office..

Sets and lighting by Bengt Gomér are atmospheric and functional, primarily the cold, streamlined laboratory, where at intervals a moving box slides on to reveal other settings, such as Coppelius’s office.

Scottish Ballet’s Coppélia is danced to a specially commissioned score by Michael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson, that ranges from very contemporary electronic to full orchestral sound, quoting liberally from Delibes's original. It's played with great élan by Scottish Ballet Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Claude Picard.

Company principal Constance Devernay is Swanhilda, a human very much in control, both when dealing with her handsome but slightly gormless boyfriend, Franz (a wide-eyed Jerome Barnes) and the hyperactive Coppelius.

Their central pas de deux, when Swanhilda impersonates Coppélia, much to the delight of the fooled inventor, is a subtle assertion of human power over delusions of scientific primacy.


Principals Constance Devernay and Bruno Micchiardi in Scottish Ballet's Coppélia. Photo: Andy Ross
Newly minted principal Bruno Micchiardi is a delightful dancer and stage actor, his arrogant Coppelius neat and fleet-footed.

The ensemble flood the stage with lively, well co-ordinated movement, both as laboratory technicians and as gender-neutral replicas of the AI Coppélia.

The choreography, blending ballet with jazz, disco moves and a touch of robotics, flows in an enjoyable and intelligent way. The human to human interactions are eloquent, the ensemble numbers eye-filling, particularly where the Coppélia replicas are multiplied ad infinitum in video projections.


Artists of Scottish Ballet in Coppélia. Photo: Andy Ross

In short, in Coppélia Scottish Ballet has another unquestionable hit, further to cement its reputation as possibly the most consistently innovative ballet company in the UK.