When David met Coppélia


The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David McAllister knows the tale of Coppélia all too well. Coppélia has everything: flirtation, feisty lovers and a Frankensteinian mad scientist who brings dolls to life. The title role of Franz, the boy-about-town who adores charming the ladies, was David’s very first leading role. “Oh, I was a baby,” David says, rolling his eyes with a grin. “I was just a small fry – but it was still very exciting. It was just one of those dreams come true.”

Franz was the first principal role David played, and it was one of the last before he retired as a dancer. He performed it every time The Australian Ballet staged the work between 1985 and 2000. The character of Franz was a real coming-of-age role for David. “I really felt like I grew up in the role,” David says. The role of Franz was a perfect fit on David – until he felt it was too familiar. “By 2000 I had done a lot of Franzes and I was still able to call on the boy-about-town character,” he says, “but by then I sort of felt like I was just bunging it on as opposed to when I first did it and that was me.” David is now on the other side of the stage, bringing Coppélia to life and handing the baton of Franz to male dancers of the company.

Personal attachment to the role of Franz isn’t the only reason why Coppélia makes David’s heart patter. It’s the historical significance of the work, and how it reminds him of his entire dance experience. The centre of ballet was shifting away from France – toward Russia – when Coppélia was performed in Paris. Russia was reinventing ballet, and proving what lengths ballet could reach. In Paris, the role of Franz was originally played by a woman, partly because there were few men dancing ballet at the time in France; “it was part of the decline of ballet in France – ballet was becoming just a girly show”.

Peggy van Praagh and theatre director George Ogilvie revamped Coppélia in 1979 by looking back to the German scribe E.T.A Hoffmann and his short horror stories which first inspired the ballet. “The Hoffman story is much darker than the original ballet. George and Peggy brought in elements of that original story and gave it some guts.” For David, Peggy van Praagh’s revived Coppélia became one of the most significant ballets of his career. “We performed it in front of the Princess of Wales in 1992 and then I performed it in Japan in 1996. I did it in 2000 as my last full-length ballet before I retired,” he said. “It was one of those ballets I was in l love with.”

Coppélia shows in Sydney 4 – May and Melbourne 10 – 22 June
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David McAllister in Coppélia 2000. Photography Jeff Busby