Napa Valley Ballet presents its first production since losing its lease and director. The former Royal Academy of Ballet in Napa has been renamed and now rents space at the Napa Women’s Club. The group has been working hard to prepare for its production of excerpts from “Coppelia.” The performance will be June 14 at the Napa District Auditorium.

“We wanted to do a ballet with a story or theme,” said Jennifer Jaffe, who was one of the directors of the ballet until recently when doctors ordered her confined to her Sebastopol home for the duration of her pregnancy. “The idea of ‘Coppelia’ was that we could do a theme without men or sets. The story is both fun for the kids and is classical.”

The group has rented hand-sewn, elaborate costumes from the Petaluma Ballet School, which has done several productions of Coppelia. The ballet will encompass all the school’s ballet students, from the youngest to the more experienced girls. A comedic ballet, Coppelia was written in 1870 and has had many variations in music, characters and choreography over the years.

“For the dances I directed, I used choreography from the American Ballet Theater with some of my own variations,” said Jaffe, a founder and dancer of the Bay Area’s Smuin Ballet. “The students are very excited and have been really hard workers to put this together. What’s an amazing privilege for the girls is that Colin Russell is one of the directors and has the ballet’s original Sadler’s Wells choreography. Now that I’m not able to drive to Napa, he will take over my duties.”

Russell, 77, trained at the Legat School in England and is a former dancer of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Irish National Ballet. He is not only teaching Coppelia, but also dancing in it as Dr. Coppelius, a role he has performed over 20 times around the world.

“I was born in Wales but emigrated to England in 1937,” said Russell, a spry man with a ready smile and distinctive British accent. “My mother brought me to see the International Ballet Company in London and I loved it. I was 13 and wanted to be a ballet dancer, but no one at that time would take boys.”

He finally found a local teacher in his town of Stafford and walked three miles to take lessons. After a few months the teacher suggested he should have advanced training and he received a scholarship to Madame Marie Rambert’s School of Ballet in London. Six weeks before he was 18 he was accepted into Legat Ballet School. Madame Legat was a former principal dancer, soloist and instructor with the Kirov Ballet.

“There were 60 girls at the school and me,” recalled Russell. “Eventually another boy joined me and we had a room in the town.”

He came to California after being asked to teach a summer class at a repertory company in Menlo Park. The company wanted a Royal Academy of Dance dancer and asked him to come back and join them. After waiting in England for four months to get a visa, Russell returned to the Bay Area only to learn the repertory theater had folded. That’s when he opened his own school, the Performing Arts Academy in Burlingame, which he ran for 30 years.

Russell has taught at Indiana University and once ran the Icelandic Ballet. He lectures around the world about ballet history and will speak to students at the Julliard School in New York this summer.

“I live in Daly City and don’t mind the once-a-week commute to Napa,” said Russell, who also teaches at the Benicia Ballet School. “I still enjoy teaching and I feel lucky to be working. Ballet is reciprocal, I’ve had fabulous teachers — Rambert was marvelous — and now I share my knowledge of ballet. It’s great to see what kids can do. Ballet gives them confidence even if they don’t become professional dancers.”

Russell flipped through a well-worn, typed copy of the 1933 Sadler’s Wells Coppelia choreography, filled with handwritten notes.

“Teaching keeps me fit,” he said. “I have no regrets about my career. The challenge now for those in the profession is that there is such a mix of techniques. Before, we had character training, now you have to have modern dance training.”

In what spare time he has, he’s been compiling notes about his career at the request of a university.

“Wakefield College in England has a library of British performers. I always kept a diary and I’ve typed it up to send. It’s enough to bore anyone for hours.”

He knows audiences in Napa will enjoy the Napa Valley Ballet school’s production of Coppelia.

“It calls for acting, especially for the principal dancer playing Swanilda and her friends. The ballet has a story, it’s comedic and has character dance. It has both classical and character techniques and a happy ending. I like to see dancers I’ve trained in performance. They must learn to convince the audience that they are their characters. The students love to dress up and it’s good physical and mental exercise. I’m looking forward to it. I always enjoy performing.”

Napa Valley Ballet presents excerpts from Coppelia, June 14, 7 p.m, at the Napa District Auditorium, 2425 Jefferson St. Tickets are $10. For reservations call 255-6008.