by Leigh Witchel
Just because it was obvious to cast Roman Mejia as Franz didn’t mean it wasn’t fabulous. And just because it seemed cliché to have him dance his debut in Coppélia with his fiancée, Tiler Peck, doesn’t mean that wasn’t fabulous either. It was. A good time was had by all at New York City Ballet.
Mejia came out, ran to center and introduced himself to us. Then he mimed about Swanilda and the mysterious girl reading on Dr. Coppélius’ balcony. “I love them both. Oh well!” He was a perfect Franz with his fresh-faced good looks and happy, ingratiating, demeanor with a touch of humorous ego. At the end of Act 1, he came straight to center, faced us and smoothed his hair before heading up the ladder to try and visit Coppélia. (In a great continuity error, he reached the top of that short ladder of about ten rungs about 15 minutes after intermission). Mejia was lovable even as he cheated on Swanilda or bullied Coppélius; he was always bringing us in.
Peck was just as natural a choice for Swanilda. Her response to the whole kerfuffle? “Me? I just dance!” She was a clear mime, if very carefully enunciated. “Over there. Is one girl.” But in a world where nobody knows mime any longer, that was likely necessary.
Not every couple has chemistry onstage. This one did. Their timing was effervescent like champagne bubbles, and it kept things light. Swanilda said Franz didn’t love her and that she wouldn’t marry him. He just smiled, knowing he’d win out. It was clear, though, she wasn’t just a conquest or a collectible. When she danced an adagio listening to an ear of wheat, which was supposed to tell her if his love was true, he ran to partner her. His attentiveness made it seem that completing her line was a gesture for her, not something he did to look good.
You would expect the dancing to be good; it was all in their wheelhouses. In his Act 1 solo, he soared into double cabrioles, and someone that airborne can’t seem unhappy. Peck made light work of her allegro variation, moving from jumps to fast pointe work to tricky balances done while bending to the side.
The staging was done in 1974 by Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova, largely after the version Danilova knew based on Petipa, but the third act was Balanchine’s. There are other moments that looked as if they either influenced him or he inserted them later. After the Act 1 duet, the eight friends danced two by two. That’s not a section sources say Balanchine touched, but it’s something Balanchine often did, as in Divertimento No. 15, to give us a closer look at the ensemble. Peck’s variation contained several ballerina touchstones: the leisurely extensions with wiping arms from the Vision Scene in The Sleeping Beauty, the pistoning passés from Raymonda.
In Act 2, Peck’s sense of timing extended to comedy. This wasn’t surprising, she’s the mistress of timing in the company right now. But Mejia’s timing, and Adam Hendrickson’s as Dr. Coppélius, were also bang-on. Hendrickson, a former soloist with the company, has always been a good actor; one who builds characters from detail rather than force. His Coppélius was not a caricature, but a man with recognizable motives.
Peck may no longer be a teen, but her Swanilda recognizably was. With her eight friends in Coppélius’ workshop, Swanilda wasn’t the first one to think of an idea, but she was the one courageous enough to try it, shaking Coppélia’s skirt trying to rouse her, finally listening for a heartbeat and realizing she was a doll.
When the others have fled and Peck, dressed as a doll, went on a tear in Coppélius’ workshop, it was adolescence in microcosm. Looking at the mechanical dolls, she demanded from Coppélius to know why they couldn’t talk – including the passed-out Franz. “I can talk, why can’t they?” “They’re all dolls.” For no real reason except to shut her up, Coppélius gave Swanilda props to do a Spanish and Scottish dance, which meant Peck could show off her speed and precision, especially in the Scottish dance.
One of the best aspects of this production, is that in her own way, Swanilda is just as wily and dangerous as Coppélius. Once she was in disguise as his beloved creation, she turned out to be as ornery and disobedient as a real-life daughter. At one point the two just stood and stared warily at one another. It was a small, great moment: worthy opponents, facing off.
Though Swanilda wreaked havoc, she had every reason to believe Franz was in danger. She woke and saved him, still laughing as she showed him Coppélia, now broken and stripped of her outfit. “See? You fell in love with a doll!”
The story was very loosely based on Der Sandmann by E.T.A Hoffmann, much in the same way as Petipa’s version of Don Quixote was based on Cervantes. Like Don Quixote, Coppélia is a de-fanged version of its source material, but with more lingering issues. As with the Don, the 20th century looked at Dr. Coppélius differently than the 19th, seeing him more as a persecuted genius than a comic, or even dangerous, quack.
He’s both. He’s an outsider but also lives right in the village square. He gets bullied by the men, Swanilda trashes his workshop and destroys his dolls, but his intention was also to steal Franz’s life force to animate his beloved Coppélia . . . shades of Mary Shelley. Hoffmann’s short story was written in 1817, a year before Frankenstein; both of them are prototypes of Romantic literature. Ironically, the most dangerous moments happen to some of Léo Delibes’ most gorgeous musical themes.
One small thing has been recently changed in the workshop scene. The Fortune Teller doll was a Chinese doll, and as in The Nutcracker, it moved with its fingers pointed. The costume and gestures have been made more generic, with the doll now reaching out open-palmed. It was never a plot element and makes no material difference, but a posthumous change is worth documenting.
At the opening of Act 3, loose plot elements were tied up before Everybody Dances. Dr. Coppélius was quickly paid off by the mayor; Coppélius’ transit across the stage was faster than the Swans pulled by ropes in Act 2 of Swan Lake.
To a suite thematically based on the dedication of bells, rung to denote both special occasions and daily tasks, Balanchine created a divertissement beginning with a Waltz of the Hours. Baily Jones led a plethora of the schools’ tiniest tots. It was an accomplishment just to wrangle them. In a debut, Mary Thomas MacKinnon took the stage the moment she entered in the sprightly allegro of Dawn. A long adagio, Prayer is harder to make something of, but Meaghan Dutton-O’Hara shaded the bourrées enough to give the solo color. Alston Macgill went in for Alexa Maxwell as Spinner and buzzed through the hops on pointe and turns with her precise technique. Megan LeCrone and Harrison Coll made debuts in what has always been the weakest section (and the one other productions usually cut), War and Discord.
With those dispatched, we could turn to the grand pas for Peck and Mejia. The adagio was mellow and flattering. All the balances and poses went well; there were no overhead grips that might expose that he’s actually a hair too short for her in those.
They each got to show off more in their solos. He soared into a side split to begin and then traversed the stage with more double cabrioles before a series of tours to end with a flourish. There are plenty of men in the company who could do that variation, but not with Mejia’s presence, panache and disarming smile.
For her solo, Peck strolled round the stage on pointe before finishing with pirouettes with arms overhead, and a dead-on axis. For the coda Mejia flew in pedaling his leg in a grand rond de jambe, Peck entered with more pointe work and dove backwards into his arms. The whole cast finished off jumping for joy with their legs tucked up under them, a step Balanchine returned to a year later for another ballet involving dolls, The Steadfast Tin Soldier.
Peck and Mejia are as much of a thing onstage as off. Each had the technique to stand up to the other; they’re really nicely matched, particularly in a sunny ballet like this. But Coppélia isn’t all sunshine. Franz is charming, but a bully and a cheat. Swanilda is courageous and destructive. Dr. Coppélius is brilliant and dangerous. The mixed motivations make the ballet more interesting. That’s life, but in comic form.
copyright © 2024 by Leigh Witchel
Coppélia – New York City Ballet
Lincoln Center, New York, NY
September 28, 2024
Cover: Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia in Coppélia. Photo © Erin Baiano.
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