Doctor Coppelius is not unlike Hoffmann's sinister Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker or the macabre Svengali-like travelling magician of the same name in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann.
The part of Franz was danced en travesti by Eugénie Fiocre, a convention that pleased the male members of the Jockey-Club de Paris and was retained in Paris until after World War II [REF].