Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann,
Der Sandmann (The Sandman), and
Die Puppe (The Doll). The ballet premiered on 25 May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra, with Giuseppina Bozzachi in the principal role of Swanhilda. Its first flush of success was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris, but eventually it became the most-performed ballet at the Opera Garnier.
Giuseppina Bozzachi had come to Paris to study, aged 16. Arthur Saint-Léon and the director of the Paris Opera, Émile Perrin had been searching for a suitable Swanhilda, after deciding that none of the people previously considered - Léontine Beaugrand, Angelina Fioretti, and Adèle Grantzou - was suitable. They even asked Delibes to seek out a suitable Swanhilda on his trip to Italy. He returned empty-handed, but in the meantime, Saint-Léon and Perrin had discovered Bozzachi. She created Swanhilda on 25 May 1870, in the presence of Emperor Napoléon III. She repeated her success in the following weeks. In July an international dispute broke out between France and Prussia over the succession to the Spanish throne. On 19 July France declared war. Giuseppina Bozzachi danced Swanhilda for the 18th and final time on 31 August, when the theatre closed for the duration of the Franco-Prussian War. Two days later, Saint-Léon died. The theatre had stopped paying salaries, and Giuseppina, weakened by lack of food, became ill. She contracted smallpox and fever, and died on the morning of her 17th birthday, 23 November 1870.
The team of Saint-Léon and Nuittier had a previous success with the ballet
La Source (1860), for which Délibes had composed the music jointly with Ludwig Minkus. A later version was re-choreographed by New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine for his first wife, Alexandra Danilova, to much success.
The story of
Coppélia concerns a mysterious and faintly diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius who has made a life-size dancing doll. It is so life-like that Franz, a village swain is infatuated with it, setting aside his true heart's desire, Swanilde, who in Act II shows him his folly, by dressing as the doll and pretending to come to life. The festive wedding-day
divertissements in the village square that occupy Act III are often deleted in modern danced versions, though one of the entrées was the first czardas presented on a ballet stage. If Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein represents the dark side of the theme of scientist as creator of life, then
Coppelia is the light side. If
Giselle is a tragedy set in a peasant village, then
Coppélia is a comedy in the same setting. The part of Franz was danced
en travestie, a convention that pleased the male members of the Jockey-Club de Paris and was retained in Paris until after World War II.
Some influence on this story comes from travelling shows of the late 18th and early 19th centuries starring mechanical automatons. This field of entertainment has been under-documented, but a recent survey of the field is contained in
The Mechanical Turk by Tom Standage (2002). These shows were later to also influence Charles Babbage in his invention of the difference engine.
Source:
Wikipedia 
