The National Capital Ballet School is presenting its first full-length production of Delibes' comic ballet Coppelia in almost 20 years. Daniel Convery has adapted the original choreography by Arthur Saint-Leon to tell the story of a man, Franz, who is distracted from his beloved, Swanhilda, by Coppelia, a girl he sees in a window, not realising she is a doll.

For the occasion, the school's director Zara Bartley has brought in professional international guest artists to dance the lead roles: Arianne Lafita Gonzalvez will be Swanhilda and Vittorio Galloro will be Franz on the Friday and Saturday night performances.

"They're from the Hong Kong Company and both trained in Cuba," she says.

"I brought them to lift the quality of the performance and give the students the opportunity to dance with professional dancers."

Alternating in the leads will be two of the school's students, Madeline Bowman and Joshua Walsh. The latter was recently selected to join the New Zealand School of Dance in 2016. Also in the cast is veteran Canberra actor Oliver Baudert in a non-dancing role as the mysterious toymaker Dr Coppelius.

Bartley says, "We had a full-length ballet last year, The Nutcracker, that had a lot of kids involved, about 250, because there are a lot of child parts in The Nutcracker. This year it's different, only our senior ensemble is involved, we're trying to make it a bit more professional so there are only about 40 or 50 students."

The contemporary piece, At the Edges of Day, is former Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company performer Josef Brown's debut as a choreographer.

"It superbly showcases the dancers' emotional as well as physical abilities."