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Music
Franz Liszt
Arrangement
and Orchestration
John Lanchbery
Choreography
Kenneth MacMillan
Designs
Nicholas
Georgiadis
Scenario
Gillian Freeman
Cast
Martin Harvey
Tamara Rojo
Belinda Hatley
Artists of
the
Royal Ballet
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Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
9 April - 7 May 2007
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To
convey the foetid atmosphere
of madness coupled with license,
desire and frustration, secrecy
and horror, and to tell a
tale of royal cover-up, little
can surpass MacMillan's skill
at narrative, or his sense
of contrast: in the opening
scene of the ball, subliminal
tensions erupt into public
display, and later the emotional
conflict between Crown Prince
Rudolf and his mother the
Empress Elizabeth make a razor-slash
of pain in the formalities
of a party beyond which a
firework display disguises
the rottenness at the heart
of things.
In reviewing the 2004 revival
with Jonathan Cope in the
Rudolf role, I wrote that
he danced the 'erotic and
frightening mixture' of despair
and disorder beautifully,
and that the revival was worthy
of the great staging in which
a newly-rising Darcy Bussell
danced Mitzi in the brothel
scene, and Zenaida Yanowsky
danced the Empress to perfection.
In this production Tamara
Rojo is as enchantingly tragic
a Mary Vetsera as she was
in 2004, nothing lost from
the elfin urgency of a very
youthful romantic's playing
with fire, and this production's
Empress is a wonderful evocation
of the famously beautiful
and notoriously immoral woman
who gave her husband, the
emperor, a portrait of his
homely mistress for a birthday
present.
But Martin Harvey was unsure
of step in the first act,
and only in the last did he
find his stride. Rudolf is
a very demanding role indeed;
he is hardly ever off the
stage; he is the spindle on
which all else turns, except
in the brothel scene; therefore
a special combination of stamina,
skill and a distinctive -
and tall - presence is required,
which relatively few dancers
can bring. In recent memory
Cope came closest to the ideal,
and it is difficult to see
who among the otherwise fine
cast of current male leads
can bring exactly that same
mixture.
Still, Mayerling is both a
story and a ballet that offers
more than a single performance's
worth of entertainment, and
the staging is brilliant,
as is the characteristic Lanchbery
orchestration and the corps
de ballet's spirited commitment.
The framing by the secret
burial of the hapless Mary
Vetsera is a chilling, deep,
disturbing piece of theatrical
genius, and it gives a dimension
to the whole that renders
it surprisingly modern.
AC Grayling |
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