The Royal Ballet's Mayerling on Stage and Screen

Crown Prince Rudolf

 

The Royal Ballet Mayerling Royal Opera House, 29 Nov 2022 19:30

Schloß Mayerling is now a Carmelite convent. In 1889 it was a royal hunting lodge where Rudolf, the 30-year-old Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Mary Vetsera, an impressionable 17-year-old, killed themselves. Details of their deaths were suppressed for many years but the truth eventually emerged.  In 1978 Sir Kenneth MacMillan created a ballet on the story to the music of Franz Liszt with designs by Nicholas Georgiadis. I saw the work in the cinema in October and on stage at the Royal Opera House on 29 Nov 2022. 

While not exactly a barrel of laughs it is one of MacMillan's most frequently performed ballets.  It is not hard to see why.  It has exciting choreography, enchanting music, elaborate sets and lavish costumes. For many years the Royal Ballet was the only company to stage Mayerling.  There are now several others in the United States, Germany and Scotland.  Scottish Ballet's was based on Sir Kenneth's choreography and staged with his widow's cooperation.  I missed it because I was recovering from a hip injury when it was on tour. 

The performance that I saw last Tuesday evening was one of my best nights at the ballet in a lifetime of theatre-going. That was despite last-minute cast changes resulting from an injury to Steven McRae.  Having seen Ryoichi Hirano on screen I had been looking forward to a very different interpretation from McRea.  I also wanted to see Kristin McNally as Sissi, Anne Rose O'Sullivan as  Rudolf's long-suffering wife and Bradfordian Thomas Whitehead as Colonel Bay Middleton.  Having said that I was not in the least disappointed by those who took their place.

The role that MacMillan created for Prince Rudolf is pretty close to the historical character.  An exceptionally privileged individual who could literally get away with murder (or at least manslaughter) but also a very trapped one.  A figure readily deserving contempt but also sympathy and compassion. Hirano stimulated all those emotions in me.  Contempt as he humiliated his bride in a brothel or threatened women with his pistol but compassion as he drank himself crazy minutes before he blew his brains out.  The role requires outstanding virtuosity.  It requires a rare talent to carry all that off but that is exactly what Hirano did.

There are four important female roles in Mayerling:  

• Mary, Baroness Vetsora who agreed to die with him
• Mitzi who most certainly would not
• Rudolf's wife, Princess Stephanie of Belgium, and 
• his mother, Empress Sissi.

Akane Takada brought Mary to life with her sweetness and delicacy. Perhaps more than brought her to life because the real Mary was little more than a child when she met Rudolf.  Leticia Dias was a streetwise Mitzi, picking herself up and carrying on even after a police raid.  Yuhui Choe danced Stephanie. Her indignation was palpable as she was dragged to a brothel.  Itziar Mendizabal danced the Empress exactly as I would have imagined her,

The Hapsburgs who had ruled Austria since the 13th century were approaching their end by the late 19th century. Like contemporary Britain, they faced challenges from nationalists represented in the ballet by the 4 Hungarian officers, Luca Acri, Benjamin Ella, Joseph Sissons and David Yudes.    There was more than a little sleaze as represented by the sex workers.   A flawed royal family had their extra-marital support in such characters as Sisi's lover Colonel Middleton danced by Nicol Edmonds.