Mayerling

Mayerling ballet. Choreography by Kenneth MacMillan. Music by Franz Liszt as arranged and adapted by John Lanchbery. Performed 2009 at the Royal Opera House.  Stars Edward Watson, Mara Galeazzi, Iohna Loots, William Tuckett, Cindy Jourdain, Sarah Lamb, Elizabeth McGorian, Steven McRae, Laura Morera, Gary Avis, Sergei Polunin, Bennet Gartside, Yohei Sasaki, Thomas Whitehead, Elizabeth Sikora, Paul Stobart, Alastair Marriott, Johannes Stepanek, Romany Pajdak, David Pickering, Sian Murphy, Leanne Cope, Michael Stojko, Ernst Meisner, and other artists of the Royal Ballet. Barry Wordsworth conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (Associate Concert Master Ania Safonova). Designs by Nicholas Georgiadis; scenario by Gillian Freeman; lighting by John B. Read; staging by Grant Coyle, Monica Mason, and Monica Parker. Released  2010, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: A+

"Mayerling" was the name of a Habsburg royal hunting lodge in Austria. In 1889 a mysterious double homicide occurred there involving Crown Prince Rudolph, age 31, and Baroness Mary Vetsera, Rudolph's mistress, age 17. After an extensive cover-up, the belief emerged that Rudolph murdered Mary and committed suicide or that that they committed suicide together. This event is called the "Mayerling incident," and it became a metaphor for the end of divine-right royal rule in Europe (which in fact concluded 30 years later in 1917 in Russia and 1918 in Austria-Hungary).

Rudolf knew that if he became emperor, he would be faced with huge political challenges. He was just smart enough to know how intellectually and morally inadequate he would be for the task ahead. He had no one to turn to for advice; and his friends, separatist Hungarian army officers, were being watched by the secret police. Nor could his mother, absorbed with her own big-time marital problems, offer solace. The way out was addiction to sex, drink, drugs, and fantasies of death.

Mayerling is a modern ballet created by McMillian in 1978. It's a study in abnormal psychology, and it requires the utmost in acting skills from a large cast. Much of the dancing is pleasant if rather routine. But there are 3 pas de deux scenes that look to me to be as hard and dangerous and impressive as ballet can be. All this will appeal to anyone interested in 20th century art. But Mayerling is also intrinsically a costume drama. It is supported an admirable melodic potpourri of romantic Franz Liszt program music and piano music (mostly transcribed for orchestra by John Lanchbery). So there's plenty here to please the traditionalists. Although Rudolf hurt a lot of people and took a teenager's life as his final trophy, the libretto portrays him as victim, not villain. He knew what he was doing was wrong and despaired. But he was a ordinary person caught up in a vortex of extraordinary forces --- no help in sight--- and could not bail out his sinking ship.

It would be hard to find fault with any of the dancers. Watson brilliantly portrays Rudolph's anguish. Galeazzi is convincing as the girl who was sufficiently infatuated and reckless to be what the disintegrating Prince had never found before: a soul mate to the death.

The sound on this disc is fine. The video is fine also with one quibble: At the beginning of Act 1 there is a grand parade of royal families moving across the stage going to Stephanie's party. HDTV cameras cannot handle this with current technology. Panning across a static scene or lateral motion across a static background produces highly unpleasant motion artifacts in HDVD. If you are staging a ballet that will be made into an HDVD, you should try having the parade start from the rear and head straight to the camera with the marchers peeling off to the right or left. This should substantially reduce motion issues, and is a good example of how the new video technology might affect the choreography and design of a show.

Finally, I'll comment on how lucky we are to have this excellent recording. Mayerling is an obscure ballet. Few have seen it, and there are only a couple of recordings available. But now we have this beautiful production and can fully appreciate what an excellent ballet Mayerling is. How many other fine ballets are waiting for us to discover thru the magic of HDVD?