Coppelia Edinburgh International Festival 2022 Festival Theatre 16 August Review
Coppélia by Scottish Ballet at the Festival Theatre as part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival was an unexpected surprise, and in a good way. I was not too sure what to expect when I saw that Delibes’ classic ballet had been condensed down to a 1 hour 20 minute performance time and that the original score had been “referenced” whilst the ballet had been completely re-imagined. Often this approach only goes two ways, a disaster or wonderful. I am pleased to say that this Scottish Ballet performance, and the creative team behind it, have created something both wonderful and inspirationally re-imagined for contemporary times and there are some real surprises in this new version.
The story of a human being falling in love with an inanimate object goes all the way back to ancient Greek myths and Pygmalion. The story of Coppélia of course bases its libretto upon E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story Der Sandmann (The Sandman) and it all too easy for us now to forget that when Coppélia premiered in 1870, the story of a human falling in love with a mechanical automaton was cutting edge science fiction in its day. This was not the type of story that people were used to being presented with in ballet, or on stage at all.
Move forward now to 2022 and this story of Coppélia set in a world of artificial intelligence and robots is as highly relevant, as there seems to be barely a day going past in the news where someone is claiming that an AI programme has achieved some level of sentience.
There are many things that make this re-imagination of Coppélia of interest to me. First of course the tight and creative direction and choreography by Morgann Runacre-Temple & Jessica Wright (aka Jess and Morgs) gives our dancers a work that is very contemporary whilst also retaining many elements of classical ballet. This in turn gives Constance Devernay as Coppélia/Swanhilda, Bruno Micchiardi as tech genius/CEO of NuLife, Doctor Coppélius, and Simon Schilgen (Franz, friend of Swanhilda) the opportunity to give us some fine performances that highlight their skills across different dance disciplines. These roles also require a high degree of dramatic stage ability as the format of fusing dance performance and cutting edge video production/image projection (Will Duke) means that our principal cast are on stage in very large close-up detail.
A new musical score by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson with references to the original by Leo Delibes is also a highlight here and is perfectly matched in its mood by set and lighting design by Bengt Gomér and costume design (Annemarie Woods).
All the different elements of physical dance, innovative design and cutting edge video and projection technology blend together seamlessly here to give us a very cinematic vision of a future world that may not be as far away as we think it will be.
Coppélia is also a multi-layered production that asks many questions about just what makes us human, what makes us individuals. In an odd way though Coppélia does show how far away human like robots are from ever re-creating our dancers on stage and still how far AI is from even the most basic of sentience, let alone the ability to imagine and create anything like this production of Coppélia. The bigger question of course is do we ever want technology to be able to do these things, or will that dilute us in the end as individual and creative human beings?
Review by Tom King © 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The story of a human being falling in love with an inanimate object goes all the way back to ancient Greek myths and Pygmalion. The story of Coppélia of course bases its libretto upon E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story Der Sandmann (The Sandman) and it all too easy for us now to forget that when Coppélia premiered in 1870, the story of a human falling in love with a mechanical automaton was cutting edge science fiction in its day. This was not the type of story that people were used to being presented with in ballet, or on stage at all.
Move forward now to 2022 and this story of Coppélia set in a world of artificial intelligence and robots is as highly relevant, as there seems to be barely a day going past in the news where someone is claiming that an AI programme has achieved some level of sentience.
There are many things that make this re-imagination of Coppélia of interest to me. First of course the tight and creative direction and choreography by Morgann Runacre-Temple & Jessica Wright (aka Jess and Morgs) gives our dancers a work that is very contemporary whilst also retaining many elements of classical ballet. This in turn gives Constance Devernay as Coppélia/Swanhilda, Bruno Micchiardi as tech genius/CEO of NuLife, Doctor Coppélius, and Simon Schilgen (Franz, friend of Swanhilda) the opportunity to give us some fine performances that highlight their skills across different dance disciplines. These roles also require a high degree of dramatic stage ability as the format of fusing dance performance and cutting edge video production/image projection (Will Duke) means that our principal cast are on stage in very large close-up detail.
A new musical score by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson with references to the original by Leo Delibes is also a highlight here and is perfectly matched in its mood by set and lighting design by Bengt Gomér and costume design (Annemarie Woods).
All the different elements of physical dance, innovative design and cutting edge video and projection technology blend together seamlessly here to give us a very cinematic vision of a future world that may not be as far away as we think it will be.
Coppélia is also a multi-layered production that asks many questions about just what makes us human, what makes us individuals. In an odd way though Coppélia does show how far away human like robots are from ever re-creating our dancers on stage and still how far AI is from even the most basic of sentience, let alone the ability to imagine and create anything like this production of Coppélia. The bigger question of course is do we ever want technology to be able to do these things, or will that dilute us in the end as individual and creative human beings?
Review by Tom King © 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com