Recently I got a Blu-ray player with the Netflix option.  I found
a rather strange Japanese anime program titled "Princess Tutu".
(This is what happens when one has a 2-1/2-year-old niece!)

The setting of this anime program is somewhere between Alice's
"Wonderland" and an idealized Austrian village somewhere in a snow
globe between Salzburg and Vienna.  (The translation says Germany,
but the design is more Austrian.)  This is _not_ one of those pink
princess Barbie things -- it is stunningly beautiful, painted in
watercolors.  Fans have posted clips to YouTube.

The plot involves a duck who by day is an awkward failing ballet
student.  Her fate is to save the mythological prince who is named
well Mytho.  To do this the narrator, Drosselmeyer from the Nutcracker,
transforms her into Princess Tutu.  They are aided by the puppet Edel,
who is patterned after the doll in Copellia.

Edel has a music box with a phonograph horn attached -- this is one
time where a picture is really 1000 words.  Whenever she appears the
"Golem doll automata theme" from Delibes' "Coppelia" is played.
I want this now on my own music box!

The clock tower also has a clock which has figures and plays other
themes from Coppelia.  These mechanical music objects are important to
the plot.  Much of the interstitial scenes involving Drosselmeyer take
place inside the clockwork gears.

The ballet students are taught by a cat.  They practice to a disc
pan-harmonium music box with several large perforated disks.  This also
has phonograph horns and is played by a penguin.

All the music in the show is classical.  Much of it has a mechanical
sound to it, which is not surprising as all of the on-screen sources of
music are mechanical.

I was particularly fascinated with the "Aquarium" theme from "Carnival
Of The Animals".  What I find most curious is the lack of the movements
from this suite in my large collection of band organ music.  I did some
searching on "Carnival Of The Animals" and I found that the composer,
Saint-Saens, did not allow publication of the 1883 composition until
after his death.  That would put the publication date somewhere in the
early 1920s and in that gray era of U.S. music copyrights.

I was able to locate MIDI files of the "Coppelia" themes as well as the
"Carnival Of The Animals" so I can make adaptations for my Caliola
(which has the advantage of being chromatic).

What I am not sure of is that I can only find the titles using the
on-line translator from the Japanese Anime fan sites.  These in turn
are translations from French or German song names.  It is next to
impossible to find any English translation of some of the songs so
I do not know if there is a more popular name that these songs would be
titled on the rolls.

Julie Porter

 [ At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Tutu  -- "Reviewers point
 [ out that although Princess Tutu is nominally a magical girl series,
 [ it is more of a "fairy tale set to ballet with a few magical girl
 [ elements mixed in," and its use of ballet dances in lieu of violence
 [ to solve conflicts carries "surprisingly effective emotional appeal."
 [
 [ Watch or download "Princess Tutu" English subbed/dubbed online at
 [ http://www.animeultima.tv/watch/princess-tutu-english-subbed-dubbed-online/ 
 [ (Best viewed with a child on your lap!  ;-)  -- Robbie