Choreography
Kenneth Macmillan
Arranged and Orchestrated by
John Lanchbery
Staged by
Grant Coyle
Monica Mason
Monica Parker
Designed by
Nicholas Georgiadis
Scenario by
Gillian Freeman
Conducted by
Graham Bond
Cast
Crown Prince
Rudolf
Jonathan Cope
Baroness Mary Vetsera
Tamara Rojo
Countess
Marie Larisch
Jaimie Tapper
Bratfisch
Rocardo Cervera
Empress Elizabeth
Zenaida Yanowsky
Mitzi Caspar
Deirdre Chapman
Four Hungarian officers
Jose Martin
Yohei Sasaki
Edward Watson
Bennet Gartside
Princess Stephanie
Gemma Bond
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Mayerling
Franz Liszt
Royal Ballet
Covent Garden
17 March - 6 April 2004
One aspect of Kenneth Macmillan's genius is the power he brings to dramatisation of the psychological. In this dark, tormented and tragic story he explores and analyses despair and its descent through dissipation to murder and suicide, all played out against the gorgeous backdrop of Austro-Hungarian imperial pomp. His choreography for this haunting tale is transcendent. It is daring, powerful, dangerous, ultimately physical, so demanding on the dancers, who literally risk their limbs in every almost every scene, that it is a wonder they survive rehearsals. Take this dazzling choreography, clothe it sumptuously in stunning set and costume designs, float it on another act of genius John Lanchbery's truly remarkable score, stitched with threads of pure gold from Liszt and stir in, as the final ingredient, the fact that the Royal Ballet is unbeatably good at this kind of production, and you have what is now to be seen on Covent Garden's stage: a brilliant ballet, brilliantly staged and performed.
A decade ago this production featured a breathtaking array of stars in the chief roles. Irek Mukhamedov danced Rudolf and Viviana Durante danced Mary. Lesley Collier was Marie Larisch, and the already-risen star of Darcy Bussell shone as Mitzi Caspar. Everyone who saw that 1993 production remembers it, although it is not just the cast that imprints it on the mind, but the fact that as one of the greatest of Macmillans creations, and as an utterly compelling story, it cannot fail to etch itself on the mind.
How does this revival compare? Very worthily indeed. The tall spare Jonathan Cope grows in the part, and his chemistry with Tamara Rojo is remarkable. The performances by Jaimie Tapper as Countess Larisch and Deirdre Chapman as Mitzi Caspar live vividly in the mind, and Rocardo Cervera's Bratfisch is superlative. The Royal Ballet's corps de ballet has sometimes been criticised for its ensemble work, but in Mayerling, with the individuality of its roles and its exploration of different etiquettes of movement the formality of a State Ball, the unbuttoned ambience of a brothel the opportunity for the company's gifts is given full and immensely satisfying rein. The real Crown Prince Rudolf might have been a tormented soul, stuck in the rigid and stifling formalities of court life, damaged (so the standard view has it) by his relationship with his famously beautiful and immoral mother, the Empress Elizabeth, and moreover forced to marry an utterly unprepossessing foreign royal brood-mare but he must have been a nightmare too: wild, drunken, irresponsible, a drug-addict, dangerously flirting with Hungarian rebels. One wonders whether the true story of Mayerling is not even more of a cover-up than it seems, for it would surprise no-one if he was murdered on his fathers orders, as a hopeless risk to the future of the empire.
In Macmillan's telling, the futility and imprisonment of Rudolf's agonised life is finely drawn, as is his unquenchable emotional need. He was desperate for the solace of women, and sought it everywhere in affairs at Court, in the arms of prostitutes such as the ebullient Mitzi Caspar, at last in a fatally dangerous affair with a woman whose sensibility answered his by finding the thought of death as romantic as love itself, and treated it as indeed a gift that love could give. The erotic and frightening mixture that results is presented in penetrating detail by Macmillan, leaving one breathless by the end. Jonathan Cope dances every nuance of this devastating, wretched, painful story to perfection. It is a great role in a great ballet, and this production is unmissable.
AC Grayling
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