|Young People's Performances~March 7, 2008| | Public Performances~March 8-9, 2008|

PUBLIC PERFORMANCES

Dates and Venue
7:30 pm Saturday, March 8, 2008
2:00 pm Sunday, March 9, 2008
Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center , UM–St. Louis Campus, St. Louis, Missouri. Click for map & driving directions.

Ticket information
Tickets are on sale at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. Box Office hours are Monday thru Friday between 10:00 am and 6:00 pm. Click for map & driving directions. Phone orders can be placed by calling toll free number (866) 516-4949 or ((314) 516-4949. There is a per ticket charge of $3 for the tickets purchased over the phone or on the Touhill website. Tickets purchased over the phone or on the website must be charged to MasterCard, Visa, or Discover. Tickets will be mailed directly to you, if the performance date is at least eight days away.

Click here to listen KFUO-FM Classic 99's Tom Sudholt interview ballet mistress CiCi Houston about this spectacular production.

Take a charming love story, add a lively musical score, exquisite dancing, a touch of magic and what do you get? Classical ballet’s greatest comedy! Guest artists Kristi Capps and Anthony Krutzkamp, from the Cincinnati Ballet, will dance the leading roles. This three-act ballet is choreographed by Marek Cholewa, Associate Professor of Dance at Butler University and a graduate of Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia. Bring the entire family to this entertaining ballet with a fairy-tale ending!

The story comes from a book by Charles Nuitter and Arthur Saint-Léon after a story by E.T.A. Hoffman, Der Sandman (The Sandman). E.T.A. Hoffman is also the author of the story, Der Nussknacker und der Mäusekönig (The Nutcracker and the Mouse King) , from which the storyline of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Ballet was derived. Chaos ensues as Dr. Coppélius, an eccentric doll maker, and his unusually lifelike doll unwittingly bring discord to Swanilda and Franz’s budding romance.

Charles Victor, aka Arthur Saint-Léon, a French dancer, choreographer, and violinist, choreographed this classic, full-length story ballet for its premiere at the Paris Opera on May 25, 1870. Included in the audience were Napoleon III and the Empress. Coppélia was the last production at the Paris Opera before the Franco-Prussian War forced the theater to close. Giuseppina Bozacchi, the original Swanhilda, a promising 16-year-old ballerina, died on her 17th birthday from a cholera outbreak caused by the war.

The choreography cleverly integrated classical ballet and national dances, and has been a popular staple of the international ballet repertoire since then. Despite the fact that Saint-Léon devised and wrote a paper about a new method of dance notation, called Le Stenochoregraphie, ou l’Art d’Ecrire Promptement la Danse, he failed to notate his own ballets. Luckily, the original choreography has been passed on from one generation to another. Colewa's choreography is true to its original concept but incorporates a fresh interpretation that you will love. 

French composer Clement Philibert, aka Léo Delibes (1836-1891), began his career as an organist and progressed to write operettas and operas, but it was not until 1870 when he composed the score for Coppélia that he achieved true fame. In this work, Delibes borrowed elements of popular entertainment of the day, such as the pantomime performed at La Comedie Francaise that marked the first time that dancers were challenged by performing comedy as well as dancing. It also included folk dancing in the score at the suggestion of the authors to reflect the nationalist fervor in the air at the time.

The music of Delibes has been a source of inspiration for many great composers of ballet music, among which is the most famous of them all, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. You will recognize and enjoy the melodious tunes in the score while being mesmerized by the talented dancers of Alexandra Ballet and guest artists Kristi Capps and Anthony Krutzkamp of the Cincinnati Ballet.

YOUNG PEOPLE'S PERFORMANCES

Dates
Friday, March 7, 2006 9:30 am and 12:45 pm

Venue
Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center , UM–St. Louis Campus, St. Louis, Missouri. Click here for here for map & driving directions.

We are pleased to continue to provide our community with one of the most comprehensive fine arts educational outreach initiatives in the St. Louis region. Offered to area schools, free of charge, teachers may choose to bring their class to see the morning or afternoon performance of the ballet, Coppélia. Contact our office today to reserve space for your school—we have long waiting lists for this event! Alexandra Ballet has prepared an Educational Booklet that is designed as a resource for teachers to provide specifics about the performances, as well as a broad spectrum of learning materials that might be used in the classroom before the performances to enhance the experience of the students. Click here to download the booklet prepared for Alexandra Ballet's Coppélia.

Stage manager Tim Hubbard will present “What’s Going on Back There?”, an interactive demonstration where students are let in on some of the “secrets” of the backstage world. Hubbard is currently a national trainer in teacher workshops at The Grammy Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Center for Learning, and is a former dancer with Indianapolis Ballet Theatre. His presentations have been met with great enthusiasm by the students and educators alike. Alexandra Ballet is proud to sponsor his presentation during the Young People’s Performances this year again. We cannot think of a better introduction to the transformational power of the performing arts for our highly inquisitive and impressionable young audiences.

Alexandra Ballet Home | Alexandra Ballet Company | Alexandra School of Ballet | Performances | Latest News | Contact Us

Last Modified: Sunday, March 8, 2009 5:59 PM
Copyright © 2007, Alexandra Ballet