page_title: Coppélia
section_title: Fairy tale to ballet
hierarchical_section_title: Coppélia / Fairy tale to ballet
caption_attribution_description: Selbstportrait E.T.A. Hoffmanns als Frontispiz zu seinen Fantasiestücke in Callot’s Manier.
context_page_description: Coppélia ou La fille aux yeux d'email is probably the best-known and most performed comedy ballet in the world. Arthur Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter based the ballet on E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 fairy tale Der Sandmann. Léo Delibes wrote the music. Saint-Léon choreographed the ballet.
  The ballet is set in a Polish village long ago. Swanhilda and Frantz are sweethearts. Swanhilda thinks Frantz is in love with Coppélia, a strange girl in the house of a dollmaker named Dr. Coppélius. Swanhilda discovers Coppélia is a doll. Dr. Coppélius tries to bring the doll to life using Frantz's life force. Swanhilda saves her sweetheart's life, and the two live happily ever after.
  Coppélia was in rehearsal for three years. It had many troubles. One was finding just the right dancer to portray Swanhilda. Sixteen-year-old Giuseppina Bozzacchi was finally chosen. Frantz was played by Eugenie Fiocre. The ballet was first performed on 25 May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra in Paris. Coppélia was a great success. It has been performed around the world.
context_section_description: Several changes were made to Hoffmann's dark fairy tale when it was adapted to the bright and gay Coppélia. In Hoffmann's fairy tale, for example, the doll comes to life through the hero's life force. In the ballet though, the doll remains a doll. Coppélius's attempt to bring it to life is thwarted by Swanhilda.
  In another example, Hoffmann's hero sees the doll in a vision. He then falls from a tower to his death. The hero of Coppélia however is saved by his sweetheart. A happy ending replaces a tragic ending.
  The designers of the ballet chose only Dr. Coppélius, the life-sized doll, and the young man torn between his attraction to the doll and his love for a human sweetheart for their adaptation. They set the story in a simple country village. Hoffmann set his story in "the philosophically oriented bourgeois society" of the early 19th century.
  The spirit of Coppélia is lighthearted and gay. The story of the ballet is simple. Its fantastic touches such as the dollmaker and his workshop make Coppélia, according to Lincoln Kirstein, "a trifle presumed especially appealing to children."
caption: E. T. A. Hoffmann before 1819
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