Coppelia reviews AMP reviews

We still have Swanilda, Franz and Dr Coppelius, but the Dr is now a white haired scientist, up to something eerily malevolent in his lab. Bourne seems to have taken his cue from Brave New World or Metropolis and 30s fascism: this Coppelius is not sweetly dotty old chap, but a scientist out to breed a new master race. And what he's after is Franz: the robot woman is just a device to lure him in.

The work begins in a quite deceptively familiar way: a balcony, the animated doll (though in a rather chic, sophisticated gown). Franz's obvious interest irritates Swanilda. She is much less expensively dressed than the robot-woman, and her motivation and that of her poor and ragged friends seems to have as much to do with envy of Coppelius's wealth and social position as female jealousy. In this version Swanilda (Emily Piercy, a very strongly characterised performance) is quite bossy and domineering, and perhaps not entirely sympathetic: Franz (Will Kemp) is a dreamy and introspective young man, given to flights of fancy.

The dance in this opening act is much more reminiscent of AMP's Cinderella than their Swan Lake (Franz's dance with the doll/robot recalls strongly Cinderella's dance with the tailor's dummy, but with the roles of the sexes reversed). It is packed with incident: the villagers are a bullying and rowdy lot and their antipathy towards Coppelius and his intellectual friends is all too plain. There is a rather ugly scene where the crowd rounds on a visitor to the lab, stealing his books and tearing them up, until the local police chief and his henchmen restore order - but with a violence which is equally unsavoury. Bourne's choreography encapsulates the change of mood of the villagers from a bunch of bickering individuals to a crowd with common purpose as dancers fall one by one into a more common pattern of steps until they advance together towards Coppelius's door like a tide.

The second act takes both Franz and Swanilda and her friends inside Coppelius's lab, but what they find there is anything but traditional. The designs by Lez Brotherston are terrific. Coppelius's gleaming white and silver lab is unexpectedly vast, with massive constructions of pipes and ladders, a mixture of high tech and baroque. Swanilda and her friends' tentative exploration soon becomes bolder, though some of them seem as keen on a spot on burglary as larking around. A truly frightening moment comes as a series of door fly open and a series of Coppelius's male robots are revealed who lurch towards the girls. Bourne's cinematic influences are well to the fore here, and the lighting here is terrific with huge shadows thrown up by the robot men as they move slowly across the stage. In this version, Swanilda's friends desert her, and she is dragged before Coppelius who assesses her as if for experiment and then has her taken away. It's genuinely chilling, and heightens the tension in Franz's subsequent confrontation with Coppelius, now all ingratiating charm. Coppelius tries to use the drugged Franz to animate one of his constructions (more wonderful machines from Brotherston) watched by the impassive Coppelia robot and the terrified Swanilda. This act concludes with a scene which I assume is essentially inside Franz's mind as he struggles between allegiance to Swanhilda and Coppelia - powerful but not always easy to follow, but very well performed, particularly by the tormented Kemp.

The third act of Coppelia is traditionally a light-hearted divertissement. This version is much bleaker. The villagers mount an attack on the lab, bursting in to rescue their friends. Swanhilda and Franz are released and Coppelius captured, after some fierce fighting. The violence seemed much more unsettling than most stage fighting is. It's odd to see brutal scenes set to such lovely music, but the ultimate effect is scarier. Ultimately its hard to see whose side Bourne is on here because all the characters in their ways seem unsympathetic. Franz is something of a fool who prefers a robot to his admittedly rather hectoring Swanilda, and the villagers generally are ignorant, oppressed and none too honest. The final twist comes with the entry of the police chief and his men - the villagers eagerly hand over Coppelius: but the corrupt Police Chief is in Coppelius's pay, and to their terror, rather than taking him away, the police herd the villagers offstage towards Coppelius's experimental chambers. It's a completely downbeat ending. Only Franz is released, with, as he realises to his horror, not his Swanhilda but with the robot-woman she has become.

The role of Coppelius in this reworking is absolutely key: he is charismatic, playful and terrifying in turn. It was quite an amazing coup for AMP to persuade Sir Anthony Dowell to take on the role, an inspired choice, if a completely unexpected one. In a bid to escape the stresses and strains of running the Royal Ballet, Dowell has returned to dance. He has tremendous stage presence and his authority dominates the company and the audience. Of course, the dance vocabulary of AMP is a long way from his classical background, but he was determined to show that he could still dominate a stage. Does this mean he will forsake the RB for a renewed dance career ? After all Lynn Seymour has made a triumphant return to the stage with AMP. Stranger things have happened....