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The Royal Ballet: Mayerling, Autumn 2018


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11 hours ago, Richard LH said:

I hadn't thought about any offspring from the Rudolf/Stephanie marriage until I noticed Frankie's baby bump during the firework scene.

From an early age it seems their beautiful daughter Elisabeth inherited her father's capacity for scandal (and the use of firearms), and had a tremendously eventful life that would probably be a good subject for a dramatic ballet in itself...https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/kings-queens/the-red-archduchess-the-hapsburg-heir-who-murdered-an-actress-defied-the-nazis/

 

Fascinating, thank you, Richard.  I realised from that that there are a good 5 years between the birthday party scene in Act II and the end of that act: that's not hugely clear from the ballet. 

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4 hours ago, Nogoat said:

In the matinee, when Larisch left following the command of the Empress, she didn't put her finger to her lips; a small point, but, like a scratch on a vinyl record, noticeable.

 

I'm never sure whether that is supposed to be a finger to the lips: I thought it used to be a "wait" sign, i.e. letting him know that she'll bring Mary to him?

 

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It was nice to see (and hear) 'real' guns being fired (with blanks!). ... The bang is generated elsewhere; is this for health and safety reasons? It's a shame, because the flash from the blank behind the screen when Mary is shot added a dramatic touch. It would be easy to replicate that flash behind the screen in a 'safe' way! (using a flashgun?)

 

Can I just say that this run is the first one in a while where I've actually believed that the unfortunate bystander might have been shot by Rudolf firing the gun?  In previous runs, the angle had been getting more and more unbelievable.  I don't think all of the bangs have been generated elsewhere, surely?  Although the "bang" when Mary fires it was provided, a bit late, by a drum on Friday night, so I guess Lauren Cuthbertson had had problems firing the gun.

 

1 hour ago, penelopesimpson said:

For the first time ever with Mayerling I felt the time drag and I could sense it from the people around me. 

 

This run, I've felt that several times.  I wasn't sure whether it was related to the performance, something about the revival, me falling out of love with Mayerling (heaven knows, it took me long enough to fall in love with it in the first place!), my current personal circumstances, or what.

 

43 minutes ago, Sim said:

I knew that he was going to be good, but was wondering how good, after only two weeks to learn the role and rehearse it. 

 

Yes, kudos to him for that (although am I right in thinking that Jonathan Cope had only a week or so before his debut, which was even worse?)  The physical demands of a role are one thing, of course, especially this one, which is notoriously difficult, but if it's a role you really covet - as it sounds as though this was for Ball - you probably think (fantasise?) years in advance about how you'd tackle the role if you ever got the chance, so from the interpretation side that might already be thought out fairly fully, which must be a help in such a stressful situation.

 

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 I think the main reason I was so affected by this performance was that it was completely logical, completely believable.   Everything Rudolf did was a result of what had happened before.  This was especially so in the scene with Stephanie.  His rejection by his mother informed his next move:  the next woman he encountered was to bear the brunt of the effect of maternal rejection, and this poor woman was Stephanie. 

 

I always thought that was the underlying logic of the transition between those two scenes, but now that you mention it I haven't been particularly aware of it recently.

 

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I was left wrung out.  Then elated.  What a performance.  I can't wait to watch how Ball develops in this role, but if this is anything to go by, he is going to be one of the great Rudolfs.  Maybe he already is.  

 

I wish I'd been able to see it :(  Unfortunately, with a Watson performance scheduled for the evening, and knowing that I couldn't do two in one day, I'd had to give it a miss.  Sounds as though that was a real mistake, as it turns out :( 

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On ‎13‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 18:24, JohnS said:

I found the pdd with Stephanie a little telegraphed as there seemed too much advance warning of lifts etc - here's my knee etc from Elizabeth Harrod

 

I think that is a common problem, even with the best casts.

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6 hours ago, alison said:

Yes, kudos to him for that (although am I right in thinking that Jonathan Cope had only a week or so before his debut, which was even worse?)  The physical demands of a role are one thing, of course, especially this one, which is notoriously difficult, but if it's a role you really covet - as it sounds as though this was for Ball - you probably think (fantasise?) years in advance about how you'd tackle the role if you ever got the chance, so from the interpretation side that might already be thought out fairly fully, which must be a help in such a stressful situation.

It's also possible Matthew was covering the role, so he would've been shadowing rehearsals and actively learning the choreography if management didn't feel Watson's return was likely.  In major American companies it is almost compulsory to have covers for major roles even when there are multiple casts.  Not sure if that is the case at RB but I would be shocked if it weren't.

 

Still nothing to diminish his accomplishment: it's clear he had two weeks in earnest to prepare Rudolf which is a very short window.  But I imagine he came in with some understanding of how he wanted to portray the role as well as its physical and technical demands, before he was officially cast to perform it.

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 Like MacMillan's  Manon and Romeo and Juliet, Mayerling is staged with such regularity that it is most unlikely that anyone who has been a company member for four or more years will make his or her debut in one of its leading roles without having some familiarity with the role and its trajectory from watching other dancers perform it or having thought about the character and his or her journey during the course of the ballet. I say this not because I wish to diminish Ball's achievement but because there is an element of osmosis in assuming a role in a ballet which is a cornerstone of a company's repertory. As far as the Royal Ballet and its core repertory is concerned It is said that junior members of the corps crowd the wings to watch Manon's death throes in the Louisiana swamps and forty years ago when Fille was such a regular part of the company's repertory that its revival was almost an annual event each dancer making her debut as Lise brought such a collection of stage business which she had admired in others to that initial performance that part of the fun was to speculate as to the elements she would decide to drop as she grew in confidence in the role and made it her own.

 

I thought that Ball danced the role of Rudolf extremely well revealing the beauty of some of the character's choreography and without resorting to emoting and sprawling. He was clearly pacing himself so that he did not run out of steam before the final pas de deux. In fact he adopted the same approach that he had for his debuts as Albrecht and Siegfried. This is not a criticism nor an exercise in damning with faint praise as  his approach worked and his performance hung together extremely well both in terms of meeting the technical demands of the choreography as a whole and creating a credible character. I expect that his portrayal of Rudolf will have developed quite considerably by the time of the second performance. If I have any criticism of the matinee performance it concerns the Larisch, of Olivia Cowley, and the Empress of Nathalie Harrison which are far too similar in approach neither of them are bad but their characterisations would be more powerful and convincing if there were greater contrast between them and they behaved as if they believed that every gesture that they were required to reproduce had an emotional truth to it.

 

Harrison needs to be more distant and glacial in her portrayal of the Empress' relationship with Rudolf and far less one of the girls in the scene which follows the ball in act 1.That scene allows the dancer playing the Empress to establish her power and authority which she needs for the scene later in the ballet in which she dismisses Larisch from the room and in effect banishes her. At present Harrison is not sufficiently aloof from the female courtiers who surround her in the scene. The scene may be appear to be cosily friendly and essentially padding but if played effectively it enables the audience to see that there is a distance between the Empress and the courtiers and that everything that happens in her interaction with others is on the Empress' terms. By failing to establish a character whose orders will be obeyed without question and against which there is no appeal at that point in the narrative she lacks the power to make  her dismissal of Larisch later in the ballet dramatically effective. I did not find Harrison at all convincing when she dismissed Larisch largely because she did not believe in herself. Parkinson, Mason and Yanowsky had no trouble in convincing an audience that they were used to having their every command obeyed and this made the standard theatrical, almost melodramatic, gesture of dismissal seem genuinely powerful when they made it. Unfortunately with Harrison it just seems a learned gesture rather than a real one. Cowley's Larisch needs to be more overtly insinuating and manipulative and again her account of the role seems more like a carefully learned and reproduced set of movements than expressive movements which mean something. When Park danced the role you scarcely noticed that it was choreographed or that she was dancing it was so expressive. The same could be said of the performances of all of the original cast. You had to concentrate on looking at the choreography as choreography rather than a compelling story being told in movement alone if you wanted to see the steps.

Edited by FLOSS
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Talking of the Empress - and thank you, FLOSS, for that long and detailed post - is it just me, or does she appear to be rather more overtly emotional in this run?  I don't remember registering her breaking down in tears to such an extent before.  It may humanise her more, but possibly to the detriment of Rudolf's character arc, as to my mind it takes the focus away from him?

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15 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

i did notice one small but interesting difference between McRae and Hirano.Last year when I saw McRae he got spectacularly drunk in Act2 and sobered up remarkably quickly. Was watching to see what Hirano did and he was more interested in having a cigarette! Bonelli was altogether more gentlemanly about the whole scene and seemed interested in a very polite way by one of the whores!

That bit where he had the cigarette was an incredibly sexy gesture.

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I see Matthew Ball has posted a short video on Instagram when the curtain rose after his debut and he steps forward - taken by Francesca Hayward.  Also an astonishing photo of his suicide from the wings.  I hope the link works.

 

 

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On 09/10/2018 at 11:16, Ian Macmillan said:

A slightly odd Twitter exchange here between two critics.  Is Luke Jennings suggesting that Ms Osipova had remained very much in character at the curtain, or that she appeared to be unhappy about some performance aspect or other?  Suggestions from those who were there?

 

Screen Shot 2018-10-09 at 11.13.36.png

 

A rather belated review by Luke Jennings of last Monday's performance has now appeared on the Guardian website.

My interest in his reviews has steadily faded as I increasingly end up thinking he attended a different performance to the one I recall seeing, such is our divergence in opinion - and this one is no exception.

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19 minutes ago, Nogoat said:

 

A rather belated review by Luke Jennings of last Monday's performance has now appeared on the Guardian website.

 

In fact this review appeared in the Observer (they operate a shared website with the Guardian). As of today there hasn't been a review from Ms Winshup (the Guardian's ballet critic) either on-line or in print. The Guardian changed its ballet critic some months ago since when she has contributed very little in the way of ballet reviews either on-line or in the print edition. I am increasingly of the opinion that Judith Mackrell's departure was a Guardian decision and that from the perspective of a ballet-goer it wasn't a good one.

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Vanartus,

 

The Guardian announced on May 22 that Lyndsey Winship (not Winshup as I mistyped above) was to be the new dance critic  following Judith Mackrell's decision to stand down. My comment was to wonder (I have no evidence) if this decision to stand down was unprompted or whether it was a Guardian wish to "refresh" (heavy irony here) its coverage of dance. As far as the replacement of/successor to Alastair Macaulay is concerned, there hasn't been any announcement though Macaulay believes someone has been identified. It can't have been a factor in the Mackrell/Winship situation from the timeline. The Guardian announcement came on May 22 (having presumably been negotiated in the weeks/months before that. According to Macaulay, the decision for him to retire (and the date) was reached during May and announced in September.

 

Judith Mackrell may be Macaulay's successor, though it would be complicated as she is married and has a family and would involve (unless she does a John Lahr) relocation across the ocean.

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I''d discount Ms Mackrell going to NY Times.  My understanding is that her decision was made to permit her more time to devote to writing books, but with occasional articles for the Guardian.  And if I recall correctly, there was a considerable fuss at the time of Mr Macaulay's appointment about his coming from the UK when suitable US alternatives were available, and there are certainly a number of those around right now.  

 

Re Mayerling, I spent last week waiting for a Guardian review for our daily Links.  The lack of one still strikes me as very odd indeed.

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2 hours ago, penelopesimpson said:

Just wanted to say thanks to Sim for her marvellous and atmospheric review of Saturday's matinee.  I have now got myself a ticket!

Many thanks, Penelope.   Ooo I hope you like it!  Please report back.  

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11 minutes ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Re Mayerling, I spent last week waiting for a Guardian review for our daily Links.  The lack of one still strikes me as very odd indeed.

 

As Luke Jennings reviewed opening night, I rather wonder if the Guardian will review a different cast - and Bonelli/Morera don't dance until later in the run.

 

Judith Mackrell has already contributed longer features e.g. below which I think was after she stood down:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jul/16/dance-ballet-metoo-culture-bullying?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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For a Monday-night first night, though, it is odd to have to wait until the following Sunday for any coverage by the Guardian stable.  There were so many reviews in the links this week that I hadn't registered the lack of a Guardian one.  I suppose illness, emergencies and so on do happen from time to time, though.

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The Guardian does not always send critics to attend the first nights of core ballets which are programmed so regularly and so often that they seem to be revived to timetable. In such circumstances the Guardian and the FT often allocate their time and column inches to review debuts in major roles. If that was the plan with this revival then their critics may well  have seen Ball's matinee debut on the thirteenth when Hirano was due to perform Rudolf for the first time but may have had difficulty in acquiring tickets for the Saturday evening performance when they could have caught up with Hirano's interpretation. So perhaps it is just a question of time before we see reviews of both debuts or perhaps there was no plan to cover this revival. No doubt we shall find out in due course. Strangely although the Guardian and the Observer are part of the same press organisation they don't seem to operate as one when it comes to reviewing ballet performances.

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It's not so much the tardiness of Luke Jennings review of Monday's performance as the inaccuracies within it. According to his review, the opening of Act 1 portrays Rudolph's engagement to Sophie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Rudolph had just married Princess Stephanie, not got engaged to his grandmother!

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1 hour ago, Mummykool said:

It's not so much the tardiness of Luke Jennings review of Monday's performance as the inaccuracies within it. According to his review, the opening of Act 1 portrays Rudolph's engagement to Sophie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Rudolph had just married Princess Stephanie, not got engaged to his grandmother!

The Gruaniad is famous for spelling mistakes, but this goes somewhat further...

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2 hours ago, Mummykool said:

It's not so much the tardiness of Luke Jennings review of Monday's performance as the inaccuracies within it. According to his review, the opening of Act 1 portrays Rudolph's engagement to Sophie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Rudolph had just married Princess Stephanie, not got engaged to his grandmother!

 

Must be something about newsapers and Mayerling, on Friday Alexander Campbell posted an Instagram Story featuring a photo of him in the Standard (?) that had labelled him as Alexander Bratfisch!

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29 minutes ago, Amelia said:

"Chilliest curtain call... She was not happy" is a pure invention by Luke Jennings, and not for for the first time. Even here, on Page 6 of our discussion, we can see photos of the curtain call with the beaming Osipova:

http://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/18363-the-royal-ballet-mayerling-autumn-2018/?page=6

Yes, I thought that it was strange as Natalia looked very happy.... and rightly so!

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56 minutes ago, penelopesimpson said:

Now that is funny!  Not quite as bad as Alastair Campbell....

 

On my second ever trip to the ROH earlier this year I saw Alexander Campbell and Alistair Campbell...one was on stage, one sat in the foyer, can't remember which was which now

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Just got back from my local cinema live broadcast of the Royal Ballet in Mayerling with Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae and wow what a intense ballet swept up by the music of Liszt.

 

Impressions

 

Steven McRae was good as Crown Prince Rudolf, partnered Sarah Lamb brilliantly, made the PDD's look effortless.

 

Loved the four Hungarian officers (Reece Clark, Tomas Mock, Calvin Richardson and Marcelino Sambé) their leaps were amazing, the heights of them during the tavern scene in Act 2.

 

Laura Morea was perfect as Countess Marie Larisch, equal parts conniving and at the same time you can tell she cares for the Crown Prince in her own way.

 

James Hay made for a delightful Bratfisch, not too showy but full of light and fun, felt bad for him at the end that not even his japes could lift the mood. 

 

I love this ballet as it ticks lots of my boxes - great music, fantastic costumes, history, dance and drama (I have always found the Hapsburgs interesting and one of my favourite books I read growing up was "The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire" by Andrew Wheatcroft)

 

And finally the strength and depth of the Royal Ballet really shone through, just giving it 100% and beyond.

 

Time just flew in the cinema.

 

My one wish is that they record the entire orchestrated score, because I adore the music and I like have had a go at making my own playlist on Spotify by looking up the pieces used but it's not really the same. 

Edited by WoodlandGladeFairy
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Great live screening tonight- to judge by many comments overheard in the packed cinema I was in, many people were being turned onto ballet, which added to the pleasure of the evening.

What superb performances all round.

A committed and impressive performance from McRae- I was very moved -and the Act 2 pas de deux was extremely intense close-up.

 

Unlike, I have to say,  the first night, it reminded me of what Mayerling can make one feel.

 

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