The Story of Coppélia
Act 1 - The Festival
Coppélia is a comedic ballet, originally choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon to the music of Leo Delibes. The story is set in a small European village where Dr. Coppélious, a toymaker, lives and begins during a town festival in celebration of a plentiful harvest. During this festival, anyone who wants to be married will be awarded a special dowery. In this story, Swanhilda, a village girl, is engaged to be married to Franz during the village’s celebration and they plan to be married during the festival. However, Franz’ becomes infatuated with Coppélia, a beautiful doll in Dr. Coppélious’s window. Franz is mesmerized by Coppélia’s beauty and is determined to get her attention; however, Coppélia sits reading all day long, paying no heed and showing no care for anyone trying to be social with her. Franz’s distractions deeply hurt Swanhilda and she feels he does not love her despite his answers. Swanilda decides to turn to an old wive’s tale for guidance. She holds up an ear of wheat to her ear; if it rattles when she shakes it, then she will know that he loves her. She shakes the wheat furiously, but no rattle can be heard. Confused and upset, she has Franz do the same thing. He tells her it does rattle. She does not believe him and runs away heartbroken. Later that day, Dr. Coppelius leaves his house and absentmindedly drops his keys on his way out. Swanhilda and her friends find the keys, determined to find out more about Coppélia, they sneak into Dr. Coppélius’ house. Dr. Coppélius arrives back home to find his door ajar and sneaks back inside to find the culprits. Act 1 ends with Franz also finding the door to Dr. Coppélius’ house ajar and venturing into the house.
Act 2 - Inside Dr. Coppélious House
Inside Dr. Coppelius’ house, Swanhilda and her friends find themselves in a room filled with strange people, who are not moving. The girls discover that these are not people at all, but life-size mechanical dolls. They quickly wind them up and watch them move. Swanhilda finds Coppélia behind a curtain and discovers that she too is a doll. When Dr. Coppélius returns home, he finds the girls in his house and angrily banishes them from his house, all but Swanhilda who stays hidden behind the curtain with Coppélia. As he cleans up the mess the girls created, he notices Franz coming into the house. Instead of shooing him away, he invites him in with the evil idea that he will steal Franz’s soul and transfer it to Coppélia to bring her to life. Dr. Coppélius lures Franz into a drunken sleep by giving him wine laced with a sleeping potion. Once Franz is asleep, Dr. Coppélius readies his magic spell to steal Franz’s soul. In the meantime, afraid of being caught by Dr. Coppélious and devising a plan of her own to get back at Franz for being infatuated with Coppélia, Swanhilda dresses up in Coppélia’s clothes and pretends to come to life. Swanhilda quickly tires of pretending to be Coppélia and dancing with Dr. Coppélious. She wakes Franz and they quickly escape by winding up all the mechanical dolls. Dr. Coppélius becomes saddened to find a lifeless Coppélia behind the curtain.
Act 3 - The Wedding
Swanhilda and Franz are married during the village celebration and are presented with many gifts and blessings. An angry Dr. Coppelius shows up at the celebration and Swanhilda offers Dr. Coppelius her dowry in return for his forgiveness. The town instead gives Dr. Coppelius a sum of money. The entire town celebrates by dancing.