'Coppelia' at the Royal Opera House

'Coppelia' has replaced 'The Nutcracker' as the Royal Opera House's Christmas ballet this year so we had to go and see it, particularly since we've not seen it before. There's something about ballet that makes it a perfect Christmas entertainment and the Royal Opera House celebrates Christmas  - it was only afterwards that I realised that I hadn't had a mince pie or gingerbread Nutcracker in the interval. Maybe next year.

'Coppelia' isn't a tale to tax the brain cells. It's based on a Hoffman story about an old toymaker who makes mechanical life-sized toys. And that is what Coppelia is, a wind-up toy, but a beautiful toy. Swanilda notices that her fiancé Franz is quite taken with the beautiful young lady sitting in the window of Dr Coppelius's house. When Dr Coppelius drops his keys in the street Swanilda finds them and goes into his house to find out who this girl really is and, by coincidence, Franz is climbing up a ladder into Coppelia's room.

Swanilda finds Dr Coppelius's workshop full of mechanical dolls who can move and dance in their outlandish costumes but then the doctor comes back home and chases the girls out of his house while Swanilda hides in a cupboard with the doll of Coppelia. Franz comes in through the window and Coppelius offers him a drugged drink and he falls asleep. Meanwhile, Swanilda has changed into Coppelia's costume in order to escape and the doctor thinks she's started to come alive. He consults his book of magic and tries to transfer Franz's soul into Coppelia without success and Swanilda and Franz escape. The next scene is a long celebration of the marriage of Swanilda and Franz with lots of dances, solos, duets and group dances. The end.

Not a complex story but that's not the point. It's all about spectacle and costumes, and sets and dancing, always about dancing. There is some fine dancing in this ballet, particularly in the third act which is all about dancing rather than story-telling. We were lucky to have Francesca Hayward as Swanilda and Alexander Campbell as Franz, both top-notch Principal dancers with the Royal Ballet and Gary Avis (who does great cape-twirling in 'The Nutcracker) as Dr Coppelius.

Thank you Royal Ballet, that was lovely!