Mayerling, The Royal Ballet Review 4*
Mayerling, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s darkest three-Act ballet, relives the events around the tragedy that shook the Habsburg empire
This article was first published on London Unattache
Few choreographers have the skill to probe the darkness of the human soul like Kenneth MacMillan, and few, if any, works in his extensive oeuvre probe it quite so disturbingly as his Mayerling, created in 1978 for The Royal Ballet. MacMillan’s three-Act reading of the events leading to the presumed murder/suicide pact between Crown Prince Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his young mistress Mary Vetsera at the hunting lodge of Mayerling, offers an unflinching probe into the complexities, political machinations and corruption of the Habsburg court at the tail end of the 19th century, focused on the central figure of Prince Rudolf.
Mayerling is now back at Covent Garden in an extended run staged by Laura Morera, in her day a memorable Mary Vetsera, that gives a roster of the Royal Ballet’s new and experienced casts an opportunity to inhabit a series of complex, demanding – draining even – characters in the repertoire.
On opening night principal Matthew Ball danced Rudolf as a deeply unhappy, drug-addicted, ever more deranged man, fascinated with death and capable of heart-breaking helplessness side by side with appalling cruelty and recklessness.
His ennui and sense of dislocation come across in an initial solo, a demanding interior monologue with sustained arabesques and slow turns. Back to the reality of the ball that celebrated his dynastic wedding to the prim Princess Stephanie, Rudolf was dismissive of his bride (Meaghan Grace Hinkis), in a scene that provided the first opportunity to marvel at Nicholas Georgiadis’s sumptuous period designs.
Later, though, you couldn’t help but feel for him as he visited Empress Elisabeth, his cold, distant mother (a chillingly spiky Kristen McNally), begging for her love with yearning gestures, only to be rebuffed; yet in the following scene he gave his bride a nightmarish wedding night, violently manhandling her and finally preparing to rape her as the curtain brought Act I to an end.
For all the luxury of the court setting with its eye-filling crowd scenes, and the claustrophobic depiction of the political pressures placed on Rudolf, as represented by a quartet of rebellious Hungarian officers constantly vying for the Prince’s support, the fulcrum of Mayerling lies in Rudolf’s relationships with women, and the extraordinary pas de deux MacMillan crafted for each.
Central to the ballet is Countess Marie Larisch, Rudolf’s former mistress. Danced with tremendous empathy by Mayara Magri, Larisch is the one nurturing figure in his life, their pas de deux showing an easy, well-established intimacy and still some mutual feeling.
Once Larisch brings him Vetsera, as a kind of offering to make him happy, the ballet hurtles inexorably towards its conclusion. Melissa Hamilton creates a powerful Mary Vetsera: at first, she is very much the teenager with a massive crush on the prince, whose portrait she embraces as she flits excitedly around her home in the throes of hero-worship.
When she enters Rudolf’s chamber, though, she buys entirely into his morbid delusions.
Hamilton’s intense sensuality makes this a very powerful pas de deux, as she wraps her legs around him, hungrily touches every inch of his body and relishes being lifted and thrown around, instinctively knowing she has captured her prince.
Later there’s a sense of surrendering to the inevitable in their second pas de deux, when they make their murder/suicide pact; and there’s desperate finality in their last coming together at the Mayerling hunting lodge.
There are many secondary named characters in Mayerling, so a careful reading of the synopsis beforehand is advisable; amid the solo roles I would make special mention of Luca Acri, who stood out for his precise, wonderfully controlled dancing as Rudolf’s private cab-driver and entertainer Bratfisch.
Mayerling is danced to a collection of music by Liszt, collated and arranged by John Lanchbery. It was played by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Martin Georgiev.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner Image: Mayerling, The Royal Ballet © 2026 RBO Tristram Kenton)
Mayerling is in repertoire at the RBO until 18 May. Full info and tickets here