Ninette de Valois, founder of The Royal Ballet, had danced with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and it is her 1954 version (beautiful design by Osbert Lancaster) that has been given a fresh lick of paint for this revival. Even if you don’t know Coppélia, the music is so familiar, so danceable, “so approachable” (according to tonight’s conductor Barry Wordsworth), balm for the tired soul.Ĭreated in 1870 for the Paris Opéra by Arthur Saint-Léon, naturally Petipa made a version in 1884 for Russia, but the one that has come down to the Royal Ballet is the 1894 Lev Ivanov and Enrico Cecchetti version, brought to the West by Nicholas Sergeyev fleeing the 1917 Revolution.

Tchaikovsky said that if he’d come across Delibes’s music earlier he’d never have undertaken Swan Lake. No traditional Nutcracker this winter at the Royal Opera House, instead we have Coppélia-the Prussian Romantic writer E T A Hoffmann (1776–1822) a rich source ( The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and The Sandman from 1816) for both.

Coppelia royal opera house