Texas Ballet Theater performed Ben Stevenson’sCoppelia this past weekend at the Music Hall at FairPark.
The comic ballet Coppelia is the story of a young man,Franz, who is engaged to Swanhilda but spends his time away fromSwanhilda flirting with the mysterious Coppelia, daughter of thestrange toymaker, Dr. Coppelius. He is eventually discovered, andSwanhilda is enraged. Later, Coppelius leaves his home andSwanhilda and her friends let themselves into the house to confrontCoppelia. Franz soon appears with a ladder to climb up toCoppelia’s window and visit her.
The second act takes place in Coppelius’ workshop homewhere Swanhilda and her friends are overwhelmed by the numerouslife size dolls.
As they continue their search of the house, they discover thatCoppelia is really just another one of Coppelius’ dolls.Coppelius returns and chases everyone out but Swanhilda, who hidesin the closet where Coppelia is kept and changes into heroutfit.
Franz enters the house and, when confronted by Coppelius, hetells him that he is in love with his daughter. Coppelius proceedsto drug Franz with wine and casts a spell to steal Franz’slife forces and transfer them to his doll.
Swanhilda, who is now dressed as Coppelia plays along withCoppelius’ scheme and a series of wild antics ensue. The actends when Swanhilda saves Franza and the two flee the workshop.
In the third act, Swanhilda and Franz have reconciled and theyget married.
The performance of Coppelia had its ups and downs. Although itis a small, young ballet company, the Texas Ballet Theater boasts avariety of dancers with exceptional backgrounds and training indance.
Unfortunately, the company’s talents were not on theirA-game Sunday afternoon.
The lead male, Grant Dettling, did not do the role of Franzjustice. He fell twice and his execution of the advanced jumps andturns required were not at the level acceptable of most leadingmale dancers.
His partner Enrica Guana Tseng, a seasoned dancer originallyfrom Italy, played the role of Swanhilda and did an excellent jobcompensating for her partner’s inadequacies. But while shewas dancing by herself, she was tense, despite having a fairlybasic choreography to perform.
Andre-Claude Kaltenrieder played the role of Coppelius withgreat gusto and finesse as a constant source of comic relief.
The highlight of the performance was Michele Gifford’sperformance of the Dawn dance in the third act. She moved withelegance and grace and had the audience captivated with her amazingstage presence and beauty.
Many of the males continuously made horribly ridiculous faceswhile dancing. The females’ ballet technique should have beenmuch stronger for dancers performing in a professional company.
The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, under the conduction of JackBuckhannan, played beautifully and the sets and costumes, on loanfrom the Houston Ballet, were equally gorgeous.
