Not Only Opera

No two performances the same: Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling at the ROH

Mayerling
The Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House
11 May 2017
Amphitheatre B39, £24
ROH page

Two comparisons were at the forefront of my mind while watching Mayerling. One was to Anastasia. Having seen MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet at a young age and then watching Mayerling shortly after I joined the ROH I had MacMillan pegged as a natural storyteller. The subsequent narrative ballets of his I've seen (with the exception of Las hermanas) have made me realize it's not as simple as that. Anastasia is the closest cousin to Mayerling in numerous ways, and returning to the latter in the wake of last autumn's performances of the former made me appreciate how fortuitous it is when the ingredients of a narrative ballet all come together. It gives you hope for some of today's choreographers, who don't always seem to have such a sure narrative grip (and whose failures are invariably greeted with dire predictions for the future of ballet).

In Anastasia not even the central character is convincingly drawn, and everyone else is at best an entirely pointless cipher. This is not the case with Mayerling. Every lead character is there to illustrate and intensify the central drama. Perhaps because of this multiplicity, the range of possible interpretations of Rudolf and his relationships is immense (more on which later). Not that I think Mayerling is perfect: the Act II bar scene is quite silly; generally scenes in Act II go on longer than they should; the hunting party scene in Act III, in which Rudolf accidentally shoots a fellow aristocrat, is not really necessary (we've already got the picture by then) and in my experience slows the pace rather than ramping it up. And I'm not sure Bratfisch really justifies his existence, his Alain-like japes in Act III rather too obviously intended to up the ante of the gruesome tragedy to come. But regardless of all these niggles, at its core Mayerling offers a host of interesting characters who can be developed with nuance from one scene to the next, resulting in a complex and fascinating work that is different in each performance.

Which brings me, more or less, to the second comparison I was thinking about. I watched Acts I and II of the general rehearsal (Stalls H34), with Steven McRae in the title role. He and Edward Watson were dancing the same ballet but it couldn't have been more different. McRae was definitely in a ballet. His Rudolf was expressed through a series of enchainements, within which individual steps were clearly defined through his blisteringly precise technique, rather as McRae would dance any of the classical ballets (or indeed as McRae would dance anything). Not so the case with Watson. More experienced in the role, perhaps more convinced of his own interpretation, and I think definitely with a very different conception of classical ballet, Watson seems to regard Rudolf's steps as optional reference points that are only a part of the entire movement. Thus where McRae places Watson throws; you could argue, where McRae performs, Watson lives.

Watson's highly personal approach does elucidate and sometimes enhance the meaning of the steps, particularly in the Act I duets. But it is also nerve-wracking to watch, not always in a good way. He's so wild and desperate in his duets with Mary Vetsera that for me they tumble over into looking messy and even dangerous. Perhaps Watson is right to try and break out of ballet's vocabulary and into freer movement – perhaps this is what MacMillan would have wanted. But, personally, I think here we encounter a limitation of the art form. MacMillan has clearly choreographed to the music he has selected: big lift on this cadence, impressive pose on this climax. Watson misses these, or only just, raggedly, makes them by the skin of his teeth. Watson's diehard fans argue this is a powerful representation of Rudolf's desperate straits; I argue that it looks wrong and in fact distracts from the drama. No matter how revolutionary MacMillan was in Mayerling, and I think he was to a point, this is still a beautifying ballet which relies on the execution of certain steps in time to the music.

The ballet is not just about Rudolf, of course, and Kevin O'Hare assembled a truly remarkable cast to accompany Watson, with every role filled by a Principal (with the exception of Olivia Cowley as Marie Larisch, who very ably filled in for a sadly injured Sarah Lamb). Zenaida Yanowsky can do no wrong and she enjoys drawing the glamorous, frivolous, cold Empress. Marianela Nuñez, who also can do no wrong, is perfect as the free-loving Mitzi Caspar, her extraordinary independence and strength as a dancer making complete sense of her tricky pas de cinq with the Hungarian officers. All four of these are luxury casting, with the leader Ryoichi Hirano and officers Matthew Ball, Nicole Edmonds and Valentino Zucchetti all competing valiantly against each other's tours en l'air. Luxury casting again with Francesca Hayward as Princess Stephanie, ably coping with Watson's wildness in their horrific pas de deux, and Alasdair Campbell as Bratfisch, whose feet seem to get speedier each time I see him (although his shoulder wiggles in his Act II solo are not quite what I remember them from 2013). It is a true pleasure to see Gary Avis as Colonel Middleton in his duet with Yanowsky, and Alastair Marriott nails again his embattled, embittered king routine, perfected probably many ballets ago but which I first admired in The Prince of the Pagodas.

Who have I left out? Oh yes. Natalia Osipova made her role debut this run as Mary Vetsera. I often find Osipova frightening to watch: she dances at such dark, intense extremes. I remember watching through my fingers her performances of Odette/Odile, Giselle, Tatiana, convinced that was about to snap her back or expire through sheer dramatic overload. So she's perfect then for Mary Vetsera. She brings together the best of McRae and Watson – the steps are perfectly executed (as far as possible with Watson as a partner) but also invested with a continuous narrative line that to me makes complete sense dramatically: no easy task with the character's rapid transformation from excited ingénue to death-obsessed vamp. It's Osipova's natural intensity and darkness that enables her to do this, just as it transforms her Giselle from innocent victim to doomed-from-the-start tragedy-waiting-to-happen, and her Tatiana into a destructive, terrifying force, and even her Lise into a kind of dangerous monomaniacal go-getter. She is simply phenomenal as Mary Vetsera, and I hope that we'll be able to see her perform the role with a variety of Rudolfs in revivals to come.