Vienna Ballet - Mayerling - Tickets on Sale

[Don Q Fan]

Tickets are now slowly going on sale online for the 4 performances of Mayerling in May- The VSB sell online 2 months to the day of the performance so I have just booked 2 May as it is 2 March today etc..

The other performance dates are 4, 15 and 19 May 2016 if anyone is interested.  It is the MacMillan version.  

https://www.culturall.com/ticket/isto/performance_schedule.mc?view=month&year=2016&month=5&type=month_menu&process_mode=normal

[Vanartus]

They perform Mayerling very well - with the added buzz that you're actually in the city where it all happened.

[loveclassics]

Tickets are now slowly going on sale online for the 4 performances of Mayerling in May- The VSB sell online 2 months to the day of the performance so I have just booked 2 May as it is 2 March today etc..

The other performance dates are 4, 15 and 19 May 2016 if anyone is interested.  It is the MacMillan version.  

https://www.culturall.com/ticket/isto/performance_schedule.mc?view=month&year=2016&month=5&type=month_menu&process_mode=normal

 

I didn't realise any other choreographer had made a version of this story - not that it is surprising as there have been quite a few film and TV versions of this sensational story. 

 

Can you imagine what today's media would have made of it?  Twitter etc would have a field day!

 

Linda

[FLOSS]

loveclassics , the company are dancing MacMillan's Mayerling. I am not aware that any other choreographer has made a ballet on the subject. The fact that Ashton's Fille and MacMillan's three successful  three act ballets are now danced across the world is the reason why the late David Drew lamented the loss of the Royal Ballet's unique repertory.

[Vanartus]

I don't understand the above comment. So it's a bad thing that other excellent companies dance MacMillan?

[FLOSS]

It is difficult to interpret someone else's comments about the loss of something that was unique to a company.. My feeling is that at the root of Drew's comment was not  that the Royal Ballet no longer had ballets which no one else danced but that it had ceased to be a great creative company. You need to appreciate how many really good ballets were created for the company by its choreographers between its establishment in 1931 and MacMillan's death in 1992. During the great years of the company there seemed to be a limitless supply of new ballets of real worth and great dancers.

 

There is something very special about going to the first performance of a new ballet by a great choreographer. You go in the expectation and knowledge that you are likely to see something truly outstanding rather than a work dependent on its designs for success. That sort of feeling must be so much greater for those actively involved in the creative process. Drew's dancing career coincided with the years of the  company's greatest creativity when the company always seemed to tour with recently created works and did not seem so dependent on the regular revival. of a limited number of ballets as it is now.

 

 Norman Morrice's directorship was a turning point although no one realised it at the time. Dowell's directorship brought the company face to face with the reality which other companies experience. Even if you know that most other classical companies rely on recycling a limited number of ballets which they all dance it must have come as a shock to discover that great choreographers are not readily at hand when you need them and that the Royal Ballet could so quickly become a company not that different from the rest. One dependent on the nineteenth century classics to pay the bills rather than to ensure the maintenance of technical standards, performing a very limited number of ballets by major in house choreographers and creating next to nothing of real artistic value. Even the recent spate of creativity must come as something of  a let down for a dancer who was there when Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Mayerling and Fille were created and danced in the Nijinska masterpieces which Ashton acquired.

Edited March 6, 2016 by FLOSS

[Vanartus]

Very well explained. But sad in a way too. Protectionism in dance works is ultimately an own goal. I can understand 5 year embargos (more out of business reasons than artistic) but not as way of guarding (or even safe-guarding) a repertory. The buzz I got from seeing Mayerling danced in Budapest and Vienna - and indeed by another company - was a worthy trade off. I'd have loved to have seen POB do Manon too. Flipping the argument I mourn the simple loss of works created on companies (accepting however the fact that companies change) - I think it's sad that the Staatsballett Berlin ignore their MacMillan heritage - Concerto and Anastasia (act 3) should still be performed in Berlin and I always felt Winter Dreams would have been a perfect fit.

[Two Pigeons]

I have to agree with the wider point that FLOSS is making here.  The standard and stamina of dancers may well have improved considerably over the years but there has been no choreographer emerge who can match Petipa, Bournonville, Fokine, Ashton, Balanchine, Tudor or Macmillan.  There are others who could be added to the list but NONE of them has been alive or significantly creative since the 1990s.  

 

I do accept that a choreographer of genius is a very rare breed but how is it that with all the training and encouragement choreographers have at their disposal it could be argued that nothing of any real substance and longevity has been created since Mayerling, Winter Dreams, Rhapsody or A Month in the Country?

 

I accept that the current trend is towards a more modern idiom, often hampered with a specially commissioned score which is too long for their invention (yes, I do mean you Mr Bintley).  Although we must accept that the Royal Ballet companies were somewhat spoiled for choice having Ashton and Macmillan so close together as were the Americans with Balanchine, Tudor and Robbins all being within the same era, where are their replacements? Given the amount of ballet activity across Europe and Russia and including ballet centres such as Canada and Australia how come all the choreographic really passes beyond mediocre, especially in its use of classical ballet.  

 

Sorry but I cannot omit Cranko.  It is almost as if his works have been dramatically under appreciated for decades everywhere except in Stuttgart but where is his equal these days?  People may find works such as Pineapple Poll dated but for a comedy ballet it has been pretty much unmatched for decades.  

 

To be fair to a lot of company directors I am sure that if they could find a classical choreographer of this calibre they would welcome them with open arms so we must just accept that they are not out there.  We had had a number of choreographic projects with BRB and they did throw up some minor gems (Oliver Hindle's interpretation of Summer from The Four Seasons springs to mind) but nothing much more has come out of them.

[FLOSS]

I think that many people would accept that  while there have been any number of apparently talented dance makers born since 1926 there have not been that many who have made ballets of startling originality and obvious quality and staying power. Perhaps part of the problem is that we have come to believe that great choreographers are born not made. If you believe that they are born then you have to wait for the next one to come along and you have to be prepared to wait for a long time. If you also believe that they are inspired men and women of genius rather than jobbing choreographers some of whom turn out to be excellent then there is nothing that you can do to speed the process along.

 

Now I think that part of the problem is that because so little has survived from the nineteenth century that we can easily be persuaded that only a few major chorographers appear in any century. As far as the major choreographers of the twentieth century are concerned we tend to accept them at face value and do little or no probing into their early experiences;  their childhood interests; their early dance training; the environment in which they began to create dance works ; the environment in which they continued creating dance works;whether they had mentors and "collaborators", people whose taste and judgment they trusted, and what cultural experiences and influences they and their mentors had been exposed to. 

 

Has it never struck you as odd that Diaghilev seemed to have had access to an endless supply of choreographers many of whom he seems to have created? It is too unlikely that his company happened to recruit so many talented potential choreographers. But it does seem to be the case that when he fell out with one choreographer he seemed to have "One he had made earlier." Closer to home Marie Rambert seems to have pulled off the same trick. Now neither Diaghilev or Rambert  were talented artistic creators and yet they were both very cultured and aware of developments in the arts . Perhaps what is missing in all of this is the cultured, cultivated enabler who knows enough to be able to say when something is not working and to demand changes.

 

Diaghilev started out with Fokine but he created or enabled Nijinsky, Massine, Balanchine, Nijinska and Lifar to become choreographers while Rambert discovered and enabled Ashton, Tudor, Walter Gore, Frank  Staff and others such as Christopher Bruce to do the same. If, as seems likely, there is far more to it than innate ability then things can be done to speed up the process. Greater exposure to the world of the arts rather than one narrowly confined to dance and dancing and current choreographic fashions seems a good starting point. It seems to me that would be choreographers need to know about the visual arts, the theatre and literature as much as they need to be able to devise movements. Finally theatrical experience outside the world of ballet and a trusted "sounding board" someone with enough guts to say when something is self indulgent rubbish or needs trimming or should be abandoned. Hugh Laing performed that function for Tudor, and I believe that Fedorovitch did something similar for Ashton. De Valois suggested changes to Manon including the inclusion of the Drunken pas de deux in act 2.

 

I can't help thinking that today's young choreographers are exposed to a very narrow range of choreographic styles and that widening the range of ballets performed to include Tudor, Cranko and some Massine would be beneficial to the very young choreographer and some who are on their way to being established. While case studies in  structure and failure might also assist the young choreographer. You do need to understand that a ballet full of incident is not necessarily going to add up to an effective three act ballet with a beginning, a middle and an end. MacMillan fell into the trap of believing that it would when he created Isadora. Using it as a case study might save others from making the same mistake.

Edited March 6, 2016 by FLOSS

[toursenlair]

Well this thread has wandered way off the topic of Mayerling ticket sales now being open in Vienna, but as for Cranko, it's hard to say he's underappreciated because in any given year at least 5 or 6 major companies are doing Onegin, others are doing his R&J, and yet others Taming of the Shrew.

[toursenlair]

also a reminder that Elite syncopations and Manon, among others, were both trashed by the critics when they opened, as was Mayerling when the RB took it to the US.

[Two Pigeons]

I may have been a bit parochial about Cranko. I saw Onegin a number of times with ENB and a couple of times with the RB. I am really looking forward to revisiting The Taming of the Shrew in June but there is also a wealth of one act ballet's that are very rarely seen.

 

Actually Onegin is one of my very favourite and I would just love it if BRB took it into their repertoire. It's not going to happen though, even with a shared production with the Opera House.

[Jan McNulty]

I may have been a bit parochial about Cranko. I saw Onegin a number of times with ENB and a couple of times with the RB. I am really looking forward to revisiting The Taming of the Shrew in June but there is also a wealth of one act ballet's that are very rarely seen.

 

Actually Onegin is one of my very favourite and I would just love it if BRB took it into their repertoire. It's not going to happen though, even with a shared production with the Opera House.

 

 

I have also seen RDB, POB and NBoC as well as Stuttgart Ballet (in Glasgow with Wolfgang Stollwitzer in the title role TP!!!) performing Onegin.

[Jan McNulty]

Well this thread has wandered way off the topic of Mayerling ticket sales now being open in Vienna, but as for Cranko, it's hard to say he's underappreciated because in any given year at least 5 or 6 major companies are doing Onegin, others are doing his R&J, and yet others Taming of the Shrew.

 

 

 

But there is a topic here were it could validly be discussed:  http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/11798-choreographers-development/#entry160130

[Two Pigeons]

I have also seen RDB, POB and NBoC as well as Stuttgart Ballet (in Glasgow with Wolfgang Stollwitzer in the title role TP!!!) performing Onegin.

Now look Janet, it's bad enough that you saw Tyrone as Romeo. You don't have to rub it in further by reminding me that you saw Wolfgang as Onegin!!!

 

I agree that this is totally off topic but I wanted her to know she has upset me (joke), but not as much as RC.

[alison]

If, as seems likely, there is far more to it than innate ability then things can be done to speed up the process. Greater exposure to the world of the arts rather than one narrowly confined to dance and dancing and current choreographic fashions seems a good starting point. It seems to me that would be choreographers need to know about the visual arts, the theatre and literature as much as they need to be able to devise movements.

 

I thought that was the sort of thing Wayne McGregor was doing with the RB's young choreographers: art, at least - not sure about the rest.

[Paul Arrowsmith]

It is difficult to interpret someone else's comments about the loss of something that was unique to a company.. My feeling is that at the root of Drew's comment was not  that the Royal Ballet no longer had ballets which no one else danced but that it had ceased to be a great creative company. 

 

 

This is something that David Drew used to discuss with me often. His point about having a unique repertoire was two-fold. Having genuinely resident choreographers meant they really understood their dancers' abilities which influenced the quality of their creations. The fact that Ashton and MacMillan were creative opposites only added to the creative tension.

 

Having exclusive rights to the works that resulted meant that the RB had unique calling cards when it did its, extensive, overseas tours in those days. That does not happen now with itinerant choreographers staging their same works more widely for companies around the world, the web, co-productions and cinema broadcasts.  

 

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

Paul said:

 

This is something that David Drew used to discuss with me often. His point about having a unique repertoire was two-fold. Having genuinely resident choreographers meant they really understood their dancers' abilities which influenced the quality of their creations. The fact that Ashton and MacMillan were creative opposites only added to the creative tension.

 

Having exclusive rights to the works that resulted meant that the RB had unique calling cards when it did its, extensive, overseas tours in those days. That does not happen now with itinerant choreographers staging their same works more widely for companies around the world, the web, co-productions and cinema broadcasts.  

 

 

That's an interesting point Paul.  I assume that means that all the companies will eventually look the same stylistically and that is sad really.

[Vanartus]

But the alternative would have been no Balanchine in Britain, Cranko just in Stuttgart - and we wouldn't have got Song or Requiem, true we'd have kept Ashton but isn't it good that accessible works like Fille act as a pull for people to discover his smaller scale works. I remember a fab triple bill in Munich dedicated to British dance: Song, Scènes de Ballet and a great Maliphant piece. Danced with respect and proper tuition. And the amazing Symphonic brilliantly taught by Wendy Ellis-Soames...

[Vanartus]

...at the Ballett am Rhein

[Don Q Fan]

I have also seen RDB, POB and NBoC as well as Stuttgart Ballet (in Glasgow with Wolfgang Stollwitzer in the title role TP!!!) performing Onegin.

 

OMG you saw Stollwitzer in Onegin....dream cast or what. Jealous!!!!

[Sim]

Jason Reilly was brilliant as well when I saw him guest with the RB a few years ago.