Coppélia Pas De Deux, Sergei Polunin & Natalia Somova

Ballet: Coppélia Music: Leo Delibes Choreography (1870): Arthur Saint-Léon Choreography (1884): Marius Petipa Choreography (1975): Roland Petit Dancers: Sergei Polunin and Natalia Somova This lesser known little pas de deux is from a 2015 performance of the 1975 Roland Petit version of Coppélia. Produced by Stanislavsky Ballet director Igor Zelensky and staged by Luigi Bonino, it served as a tribute to Petit in the years following his death in 2011. Petit’s version is less concerned with social hierarchy, and is more comical and light-hearted. Petit himself declared he was bored by 19th century “balletic paysannerie (peasantry) – all those prancing country folk waving enthusiastically at each other“. So, he set his Coppélia in a garrison town, where the ensemble numbers are performed by soldiers and the women and girls of the town. He did away with the traditional character dances. Gone are the czardas, mazurka, and polonaise that the origi