Scottish Ballet’s Coppélia turns doll maker’s dance classic into AI parable — review

Ballet has found a vehicle to tackle the allure of sentient robots. In three years, two companies have reinvented Coppélia, an 1870 comedy inspired by automated dolls, for that purpose. After Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Coppél-i.A. for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, it is Scottish Ballet’s turn to delve into artificial intelligence, with an Edinburgh Festival world premiere (at the Festival Theatre) masterminded by Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright, also known as Jess and Morgs.

There are similarities between these two new Coppélias, starting with sterile all-white sets and the notion that humanoids are the next frontier for mad inventors. In keeping with the theme, however, Scottish Ballet’s version is technologically more ambitious than Maillot’s. Jess and Morgs specialise in dance films, and they’ve woven pre-recorded scenes and live filming into the show, projected over the sets.

Dr Coppélius, once a lonely doll maker, is recast here as a baby-faced tech guru in a turtleneck, founder and CEO of a company called NuLife. He gets a visit from journalist Swanhilda, who questions him about his ethical negligence. Their two conversations happen in voiceover while the dancers attempt, and don’t quite manage, to act them out credibly. Soon enough, Swanhilda finds herself wandering the halls of NuLife, encounters the company’s many lab creatures and, at one point, turns into one. (How? Don’t ask.)

Does it make for a truly augmented ballet? Yes and no. The action is clear and fast-paced, helped along by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson’s propulsive mix of orchestral and electronic music, which features witty nods to Léo Delibes’ scintillating 1870 score. Live filming tricks are already overused in contemporary theatre but they are relatively new to ballet, and camera operator Rimbaud Patron followed the fluid but somewhat repetitive choreography seamlessly.

It’s lo-fi dramaturgy that trips up this Coppélia. In the 19th-century libretto, Swanhilda had a fiancé, Franz, who became obsessed with a doll. Jess and Morgs have contrived an improbable storyline to keep him around: the 21st-century Franz shows up with his journalist girlfriend to her work event, holding her hand throughout. The two open and close the ballet, but their relationship has no context or substance.

Constance Devernay-Laurence, a dancer of penetrating dramatic intelligence, has more to say as Swanhilda opposite Dr Coppélius. As NuLife’s founder, Bruno Micchiardi leans at times into evil-genius comedy, in a way the production could have explored further.

His creatures are saddled with plastic diapers and assorted crop-tops, but the scenes in which they come alive are the most inventive from a choreographic standpoint, with eerily distorted classical steps for Scottish Ballet’s fiercely committed dancers. Despite its inconsistencies, this Coppélia is an ambitious effort on the company’s part — and shows that ballet is perfectly capable of 21st-century theatrical experimentation.

★★★★☆

To August 16, then touring Scotland in September/October, scottishballet.co.uk