ethereal being

“Coppelia” is the last, exuberant gasp of 19th-century ballet Romanticism, that moment when the idea of the ballerina as a weightless, ethereal being, poised on the tips of her toes, became central to classical dance.

Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on ‘spirit, fire, and dew’, to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance.

Her videos present her as an ethereal being, surrounded at all times by 400 lit candles, wearing a wardrobe bequeathed to her by a faerie queen who had too many velvet capes lying around and hated to see them go to waste.

Bridget’s journey into the woods toward the end of the story feels a little like a fairy tale, especially when we discover this eerie, almost ethereal being living in a cottage in a clearing.

Ms. Hyltin was radiantly pale, an ethereal being charged with fantastic energy, bold with no loss of refinement; Mr. Veyette admirably displayed his coolly athletic force.