Swanilda, the leading lady in the fairytale favourite Coppélia, is traditionally a breakthrough role for a dancer on the rise. She’s fierce, funny, and does ‘the robot’ pretty convincingly. When Swanilda’s fiancé Franz falls in love with a mysterious dancing doll, she doesn’t let him off lightly. Behind closed doors, Swanilda stealthily changes places with the doll and, with stiff, jerky movements, fools everyone. Coppélia was Dame Peggy van Praagh’s all-time favourite ballet and in The Australian Ballet’s 1990 souvenir programme, she explained where her love of performing Swanilda began.
“Ever since the early forties, Coppélia seems to have been a part of my life. I did not expect to dance Swanilda when I first joined the Sadler’s Wells (now Royal) Ballet in 1941. I was not even the understudy for this role. In June 1942, London was subjected to severe air raids. One of the company’s ballerinas, Mary Honer, was at the Café de Paris when it received a direct hit. She was lucky to escape serious injury but suffered severe shock and was unable to dance for several weeks.
“Dame Ninette de Valois, the company’s artistic director, telephoned to inform me that I was to dance Swanilda in Oxford in four days’ time and that I should come immediately to rehearse the role. Robert Helpmann, who was to partner me as Franz, could attend but one rehearsal of the pas de deux. The rest of the company was on tour and I was unable to rehearse with them. So on an evening in June 1942 it was a very nervous Swanilda that took the stage. Later I grew to enjoy the role which I danced many times before I left the company in 1946 to become Ballet Mistress of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet.”
The Australian Ballet will perform Coppélia in Melbourne and Sydney. Subscription packages are still available in both cities
In 2008 I was 16 and asked to dance the role of Swanilda by my long time ballet teacher. It was to my utter surprise because I didn’t think I would ever have the capabilities or maturity to portray such a feisty and technically unique character. I had never even danced an entire ballet, let alone numerous solos in the one show en pointe. The developmental process was strenuous and self-doubt dared to eat me away at many points. But the beauty of this level of challenge is like a coming of age for a dancer. With each rehearsal, if you can achieve one thing more than you could than in the previous attempt, you’re learning and consistently improving even if you cannot feel it. It’s not until the show, when you’re confronted with self-reliance and expectation that you realise you have grasped what you always thought was out of your reach. I can’t wait to be inspired by Coppelia in the flesh for the first time by my most loved company. Swanilda is a timelessly benchmark role for dancers of any age.