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Music
Franz Liszt
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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Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
17 March
- 6 April 2004
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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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