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.

World Ballet Bay - Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre Ballet Troupe

Standard YouTube Licence


One of the joys of World Ballet Day is the opportunity to learn about companies that might never otherwise be seen. One of those companies is the ballet troupe of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre. Perm is a city is in Russia some 721 miles east of Moscow which is about the size of Birmingham. For a number of years, it was known as Molotov after the Soviet foreign minister.

According to Alexei Miroshnichenko, who is described as the artistic director of the Perm ballet, the Kirov Ballet was evacuated to Molotov during the second world war. While they were there they laid the foundations for the Perm ballet.  The Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre is, however, much older. The building was constructed between 1874 and 1879 but there was apparently an opera company in Perm from at least 1870.

The Bolshoi featured the Perm Ballet in its contribution to World Ballet Day and readers can see the feature on that company from 20 minutes to 30 in the recording.  For me, the most fascinating aspect of the feature is that the company performs ballets by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and Sir Frederick Ashton. Much of the feature is taken up with rehearsals and interviews with the dancers.  From the clips, they seem to have mastered the choreography very well.  Several of the dancers say that it is not easy and I wonder whether that is because of differences between our traditions and the Russians'.

Intriguingly, Natalia Osipova is listed as a principal ballerina on the Perm Ballet's website. I have tried to cross-reference in this website with Osipova's own and other sources but I have seen no evidence that she is the same as the Royal Ballet's Osipova.

Tomorrow I shall look at a British company,

MacMillan's Masterpiece

Romeo and Juliet web trailer from Birmingham Royal Ballet on Vimeo.

Birmingham Royal Ballet Romeo and Juliet 28 June 2018, 19:30 Birmingham Hippodrome

We have seen a lot of work by Sir Kenneth MacMillan over the last year or so to mark the 25th anniversary of his death. Everybody has his or her favourite work by that great man.  Mine is Romeo and Juliet.  It is about 50 years since I first saw that ballet at the Royal Opera House and I was captivated by it.  I have two abiding memories of that performance: Georgiadis's designs and Lynn Seymour's dancing.  I cannot for the life of me remember who partnered Seymour on that occasion.  It might have been Donald MacLeary, It may even have been Rudolf Nureyev. I certainly saw Nureyev with Fonteyn in that ballet - at least in film when I was a graduate student in Los Angeles if not on stage as I remember how much I preferred Seymour's dancing.

The reason I remember Seymour but not her partner is that MacMillan's ballet is a study of Juliet or rather her overnight transition from childhood to womanhood. Other choreographers have focused on different aspects of the story: Krzysztof Pastor on power or rather the power struggle between Capulets and Montagues reflecting the battle between left and right in modern Italian history (see Scottish Ballet's Timeless Romeo and Juliet 18 May 2014) while Jean-Christophe Maillot explores the role of Friar Lawrence (see Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet - different but in a good way 8 March 2015).  Romeo does not change or at least not in the same way and nothing like as much as as Juliet which is why I can always remember who danced Juliet in MacMillan's ballet but seldom her Romeo.

Because of MacMillan's focus on Juliet's transition I can't help comparing the ballerina who dances that role with Seymour. I have never seen a performance that has impressed me as much as Seymour's over the last 50 years but some have come close. Last night's exquisite performance by Celine Gittens came closest of all.  She taught me new things about the ballet.  Her realization of her womanhood as she tossed aside her toy. The look that she gives Romeo before they dance a step. No doubt that is part of the choreography but somehow I had missed them all the other times that I have seen the work.  In Gittens I saw Juliet rather than a representation of Juliet.  Just as I had with Seymour all those years before.

Another dancer who impressed me particularly last night was Ruth Brill.  She was the nurse. Not a big role  perhaps but a pivotal one.  She accompanies Juliet through every stage of the story.  A bighearted woman full of love.  She is ragged mercilessly by Juliet in the nursery and outrageously by the Montagues in the town square as she tries to deliver Juliet's note to Romeo. She prepares Juliet for her first ball. She witnesses her wedding. She tries to intercede with Juliet's parents when they force her to marry Paris. She discovers Juliet's lifeless body on the morning of what was supposed to be her wedding day.  She kneels beside her in the Capulet family crypt in the very last scene. Though very little of her face was visible under her veil I watched her eyes convey indignation as she was molested in the market place and then a frisson of delight as Romeo pecked her cheek after he had read Juliet's note.

Tall and athletic Brandon Lawrence was as worthy a Romeo as any I had seen in that role.  His duel with Tybalt was as thrilling as his dance with the seemingly lifeless Juliet in the crypt was chilling.  Valentin Olovyannikov was a haughty, headstrong Tybalt just as Shakespeare had portrayed him. Lachlan Monaghan was a gallant Mercutio stabbed in the back after he has every reason to believe his fight with Tybalt was over. It is always hard to hold back tears as he strums his sword as if it were a musical instrument and it was particularly hard last night. Samara Downs was a formidable Lady Capulet from the first icy curtsy at Escalus's command to the explosion of rage at the sign of her slain son. Alice Shee was a charming Rosaline. How many lives would have been saved had Romeo not given up on her.

There was so much to like in that performance.  There is the dance by Juliet's friends at the Capulets' party as she plucks the strings.  There is the mandolin dance  by the men in fuzzy costumes.  There was Paul Andrews's sets and costumes even though I think I prefer Georgiadis's which remind me so much of the work of Leon Bakst. There was the magnificent Maestro Kessels who won perhaps even more generous applause than he would otherwise have received after the second interval when the result of the Belgium match would have been known.

It was a long, hot drive to Biirmingham with congestion on the M1 and A52 forcing me to detour via Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield and an even worse drive back with the A38 (M) hors de combat and a massive tailback on the M6.  After delivering my friend to her home I crawled into my bed at 02:55 this morning. But last night's show was worth it.  Like the first time I saw Lynn Seymour I think I shall remember this performance for the rest of my life.

MacMillan - A National Celebration

Tulsa Ballet, Elite Syncopations, Standard YouTube Licence


Sir Kenneth MacMillan died on 29 Oct 1992 (see the biographical notes on the Kenneth Macmillan website). To commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet and the Yorke Dance Project will come together on the stages of the Royal Opera House to celebrate MacMillan’s extraordinary legacy (see Kenneth MacMillan: a National Celebration on the  Royal Opera House website.

On 18 and 19 Oct 2017, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will dance Elite Syncopations which the Kenneth MacMillan website describes as MacMillan at his most playful (see Elite Syncopations on the Kenneth MacMillan website). Extracts from the ballet performed by the Tulsa Ballet appear in the video above. Birmingham Royal Ballet will dance Concerto and Scottish Ballet Le Baiser de la Fée  (see Concerto, Le Baiser de la fée and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House's website and Scottish Ballet dances Stravinsky on Scottish Ballet's). Readers may remember my article on the reconstruction of an extract from Le Baiser de la Fée in Pavlova's drawing room (see A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life 2 June 2014),

On 24 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 dancers from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet will dance The Judas Tree and Das Lied von der Erde (see The Judas Tree and The Song of the Earth on the Royal Opera House website).  The Royal Ballet will dance The Judas Tree again on 26 and 27 Oct 2017 while Northern Ballet will dance Gloria and dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will perform Elite Syncopations (see Gloria, The Judas Tree and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House website).

The Royal Ballet will dance Jeux. a short ballet by Wayne Eagling inspired by MacMillan's recreation of Nijinsky's work at the Clore Studio Upstairs on the 18, 18 and 24 Oct 2017 (see Jeux on the Royal Opera House website).

Also in the Clore Studio Upstairs, dancers from the Yorke Dance Project will dance A Sea of Troubles on 26 and 27 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 (see Sea of Troubles on the Royal Opera House website).

As I noted in What can possibly follow Tindall? Nothing less than MacMillan 13 March 2017, Northern Ballet plans its own tribute to MacMillan by dancing Concerto, Las Hermanas and Gloria in Bradford between 5 and 7 Ocr 2017. The company will also dance that programme in Leeds on 16 and 17 March 2018 (see A Celebration of Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Master Choreographer  on the Northern Ballet website),

The Royal Ballet's New Season

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House announced its 2016-2017 season yesterday and released a video of a discussion between Kasper Holten and Kevin O'Hare about their respective companies' offerings. So far as ballet is concerned the season starts well with La Fille mal gardée and ends well with three glorious works by Ashton. There are also one or two treasures in between like Jewels but it also includes one not very welcime surprise.

I am talking, of course, about the revival of Anastasia which I saw in 1971 and which I have never been tempted to see again. According to the performance database there have been two productions. The first by Sir Kenneth MacMillan ran between 22 July 1971 and 1 Dec 1993 and the second, produced by his widow, between 2 May 1996 and 12 May 2004. The work is about Anna Anderson who claimed to be the Archduchess Anastasia a member of the Romanov family who had ruled Russia until the revolution.  We now know from DNA tests that Anderson was an imposter and that the grand duchess almost certainly died with the rest of her family at Ekaterinberg but that was not known for certain in 1967 when Sir Kenneth created the first version of the ballet.

It is a very long time since I saw the work but I distinctly remember some film and some very dissonant music. Nowadays that would be commonplace. We would probably call it multimedia. In the pre-digital 1970s it was unusual. I saw it when I was in my early twenties when I would have been my most receptive to new ideas. If I didn't take to it then I am quite unlikely to take to it now. I gave Nixon's Swan Lake a second chance last month and found that the judgment that I had formed in 2004 had not changed (see Up the Swannee 17 March 2016). One of the threads of an internet forum to which I subscribe and occasionally contribute was "What is your LEAST favourite ballet?" to which I wrote that it was a dead heat between Northern Ballet's Swan Lake and Beauty and the Beast and Anastasia. Beauty and the Beast is also about to be revived.  If I say that Jonathan Watkins's 1984 which I have seen twice is not too far behind you will understand that 2016 will not have been a very good year in that regard.

However, that is all a matter of taste and my taste may not be your taste. Each of the ballets on my "least favourite" list has its aficionados some of whom are surprised and even a little hurt to find someone with a contrary view. Anastasia has not exactly been big box office over the last 50 years but that may change as it is to be streamed to cinemas on 2 Nov 2016.  I shall not be traipsing down to London to see it and I will have to be at a very loose end even to take the bus to the Huddersfield Odeon.

One ballet that is definitely worth a trek to London is The Sleeping Beauty. This is one of my favourite ballets but one that I was surprised to find on quite a lot of subscribers' least favourite list. I have already seen a very creditable performance by the Chelmsford Ballet (see A Real Beauty: Chelmsford Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty 25 March 2016) and I am about to watch Sir Peter Wright's production for the Hungarian Ballet in Budapest (see The Hungarian National Ballet's Sleeping Beauty 24 Feb 2016). Funny isn't it that ballets like buses seem to come along in threes. I can see why some folk don't like it. It is a bit long and the story of the disappearance of a whole kingdom is even more unbelievable than girls morphing into swans or wilis but, hey ho, the music is lovely and divertissements like the bluebird pas de deux are among the most enchanting in dance.

Even more worthy of an awayday to the Smoke will be Balanchine's Jewels which will be running this time next year. Balanchine is one of my favourite choreographers and Jewels along with Serenade are among my favourite works. I missed Jewels when the Dutch National Ballet did it last season and also in the cinema when it was streamed from Moscow as I was travelling up from High Wycombe after seeing the Royal New Zealand Ballet's Giselle. Wild horses won't keep me from Covent Garden this time.

Having enjoyed Wayne McGregor's Chroma when performed by the Dutch National Ballet as part of its Cool Britannia triple bill last year (see Going Dutch 29 June 2015) I am looking forward to the Wayne McGregor triple bill (Chroma / New Wayne McGregor / Carbon Life) in November. I am also looking forward to new works by McGrego's protégés, Charlotte Edmonds and Robert Binet in the Clore Studio. I have already been introduced to their works by the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company (see The Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's best Performance yet 8 Feb 2015 and Ballet Bubbles 16 Feb 2016). If these young choreographers are good enough for Ernst Meisner and his outstanding young dancers then they are good enough for me.

The Christmas show this year will be The Nutcracker again. This is in honour of Sir Peter Wright's 80th birthday. It will be just as I like it with a real Clara Stahlbaum (not Edwards) somewhere in Mittleeuropa and not on the banks of the Thames, no balloons, no rodents hanging on into Act II, a Columbine and Harlequin, a Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier and all the usual divertissements. As reassuring as turkey with all the trimmings, Christmas pud and mince pies.

Woolf Works, another McGregor ballet, is to be revived. I missed it first time round largely because I find Virginia Woolf's Orlando a bit too close to the bone. Those who have read the book and know me will understand why. But the ballet has been received enthusiastically and the video of McGregor's rehearsal with Edward Watson indicates why. So maybe I shall give it a try this time round.

Another triple bill by David Dawson, Christopher Wheeldon and Crystal Pite (The Human Seasons / Aftethe Rain / New Crystal Pite) comes next, followed by MacMillan's Mayerling, a new work by Liam Scarlett as well as Forsythe, Balanchine and Wheeldon (The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude / Tarantella / Strapless / New Liam Scarlet) and finally the piece de resistance,  The Dream / Symphonic Variations / Marguerite and Armand).

A lot of new work this season together with some old favourites. Something for everyone and quite enough to keep me happy. Happily the Dutch National Ballet will be dancing La Bayadere in November which is just about the same time as Anastasia so I have a lot to relish and little to dread.