Choreographers: Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright
Composer: Mikael Karlsson, Michael P. Atkinson and Léo Delibes
Conductor: Jean-Claude Picard
Coppélia is a story about a man called Franz who falls in love with a life-size doll, and his understandably upset fiancée Swanhilda It’s also about Doctor Coppelius, the toy-maker who made the doll and called her Coppélia, and a little bit about the doll itself. Scottish Ballet’s choreographers Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright (Jess and Morgs, as their artistic partnership is known) have reworked the classical ballet into an AI fantasia, with a mad Silicone Valley CEO and a corps de ballet of identical robots.
In this version, Swanhilda and Franz are journalists come to interview Doctor Coppelius in his hi-tech workshop. They are invited to stay over. Swanhilda explores the dark recesses of the building, and uncovers Coppelius’ dreadful scheme. She assumes the costume and the dance moves of one of the robots, insinuates herself into their midst, and thwarts Coppelius’ plans. It isn’t a story to take all that solemnly.
The fairly rudimentary plot allows Jess and Morgs and the design team a very free rein. The costumes are a call-back to Hazel O’Connor and Breaking Glass, the design (by Bengt Gomér, who also designed the lighting) is very Bauhaus, and most significantly, Will Duke gets to play with video scenography and special effects with considerable panache.
Dancers are projected onto screens, emerge from behind images of themselves to break the borders of the screens and dance with multiplying images of themselves. The confidence and elegance of this integrated projection and actual dance is beautiful and eye-catching, and also fun. As Swanhilda, Constance Devernay enjoys some fabulously varied routines. Sneaking around the workshop, dancing free and graceful with her lover, dancing like a robot in the ensemble, she is the active heart of the ballet, and a joy to watch.
Bruno Micciardhi plays the CEO, interacting superbly with the dancer- cum-Steadicam operator Rimbaud Patron. He is funny, pantomime-villainous, and appears to relish every one of his surprise appearances and desk-thumping outbursts. It is particularly entertaining to watch his use of the elevators in his workshop, achieved by blocking the lens of the camera with manilla folders and projecting the image of closed doors on the big screen. Rimbaud Patron has to track characters around the stage, and also film them in a warren of backstage environments, all of which he manages superbly. He also integrates with the other dancers in swirling ensemble patterns, while carrying a cumbersome camera rig. It is impressively well done.
The video – live dance interaction could be gimmicky, but in such an energetic, good-natured performance, it is a bit of visual magic that enhances the energy of the dancing.
Runs until 5 March 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Reworked, robotic, remarkable
