The Royal Ballet: Mayerling, in anticipation, April 2017

[Jane S]

The sets and costumes are described as being by Pablo Nunez 'after Georgiadis with the approval of Lady Deborah MacMillan' - the same designer did the Santiago Ballet's Mayerling a few years ago, when the credit read 'with the approval of Lady Deborah MacMillan' but no mention of Georgiadis . (A newspaper report -via Google Translate - noted that "The demands of the widow were high and approval was required for every detail" and also stated that this was the first time the ballet had been redesigned. ) From what I've read it looks as if the sets and costumes seen on the first night were as planned, but whether they were a copy of the Santiago version or newly imaginined for Houston, I don't know - does anyone else?

 

[Angela]

Rumors say that Mayerling will get new designs for a Stuttgart production in 2018 by Jürgen Rose, designer of Cranko's Onegin and Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias. That one Jürgen Rose whose Onegin and Romeo designs get replaced now and then because they are too expensive for some companies, so this should be rather beautiful and lavish.

[alison]

I thought the reason why we were starting to get new designs for Onegin was simply because the fabrics no longer existed to make new costumes under the old designs?

[Angela]

The Bolshoi got the original Jürgen Rose designs in 2013, I don't think there is a problem with the fabrics. I thought that problem concerned the Lady of the Camellias, where Rose changed the colours of some dresses for the Paris production. Neumeier does not allow to show his ballet without Rose's designs, whereas the Cranko estate allows to produce all three Cranko story-ballets in different designs.

[alison]

Really?  They never used to for Onegin.  And I definitely remember being told that they didn't have any more of the fabric for Tatiana's red dress, which is why you'd get a RB ballerina having to wear, say, Haydee's costume.

[Angela]

1 hour ago, alison said:

They never used to for Onegin. 

 

Onegin has different sets by Santo Loquasto, used by ABT and NBoC, Berlin State Ballet uses designs by Elizabeth Dalton (with Lensky in a lilac suit, I can't get over it...), and there's another new design by Pier Luigi Samaritani which I think they use at La Scala. Thomas Mika designed it for Universal Ballet at Seoul and for the Estonian Ballet.

 

[Fonty]

2 hours ago, alison said:

  And I definitely remember being told that they didn't have any more of the fabric for Tatiana's red dress, which is why you'd get a RB ballerina having to wear, say, Haydee's costume.

 

I am curious to know why it should be so difficult to reproduce fabrics in this day and age?  Surely they can make something that looks like the original, even if the fabric is not the same?

[alison]

Oh-hoh, you'd be surprised, Fonty.

[Angela]

For his Sleeping Beauty at Stuttgart, Jürgen Rose bought lots of silk saris in India, so each costume in the third act was made of one or more saris. For a new costume, you would have to use a similar, but slightly different sari. He is very fussy about fabrics and their colours which makes him one of the most expensive, but most sought-after designers here in Germany. If you consider the fabric choices of someone like Jerôme Kaplan who used polyester prints (at least it looked like that) for Ratmansky's Paquita reconstruction at Munich, I'm on Rose's side for every single Euro he spends...

[toursenlair]

I agree with Angela, Jurgen Rose's productions are exquisitely beautiful (didn't know that about the saris for Stuttgart's Beauty, but there's no disputing it's pure eye candy, that production). I loathe the new Loquasto designs for the NBOC Onegin. Polyester for sure. They make the female corps look pregnant, too.