Dance Review: Mayerling

It is 40 years since Mayerling was created, and this ballet, which opened the Royal Ballet’s season at the Royal Opera House on Monday night, still has the power to shock. Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s dark interpretation of the events leading up to the double suicide in 1889 of Crown Prince Rudolf and his teenage mistress, Mary Vetsera, does not gloss over the more unsavoury elements of the story. Unlike many of the romanticised versions made for film or television, MacMillan’s take on the scandal which hit the Habsburg royal family is probably nearer the truth, even if it is expressed through the thoroughly unrealistic medium of classical ballet.

Rudolf is a prize role for a principal dancer; here is no classical prince, playing a mere supporting role to his ballerina. It requires a performance of both stamina (Rudolf is on stage for most of the night) and dramatic intensity. And, as in all of MacMillan’s full-length ballets, he must dance in some of the most convoluted and strenuous pas de deux ever created.

These pas de deux are both erotic (this is another ballet not for the kiddies), and technically taxing, and have an extraordinary beauty.

On the opening night, Ryoichi Hirano made his debut as the doomed prince (replacing an indisposed Edward Watson). It was rather underplayed — Rudolf not only has to take it to the edge, he has to go over that edge in spectacular fashion, disintegrating before our eyes.