Royal Ballet Principal Mayara Magri talks about Manon, ahead of her forthcoming debut as Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s anti-heroine
This article was first published on London Unattached
Mayara Magri is no stranger to Manon, Kenneth MacMillan’s hard-hitting ballet that portrays love, greed, corruption and perdition in 18th century Paris, and has been a much-loved staple of The Royal Ballet repertoire for over half-a-century. Since joining the company 14 years ago and steadily climbing up the ranks, the Brazilian ballerina Mayara Magri has regularly danced most female roles in Manon: street harlots, courtesans and then the soloist role of the feisty, long-suffering mistress of Manon’s brother, Lescaut.
Now, five years after her promotion to the top rank of Principal, she is tackling the lead role of the ballet’s anti-heroine, Manon, a shallow young woman, who’s too quick to swap the love of the ever faithful Des Grieux for riches as the mistress of the repugnant aristocrat Monsieur GM, but whose end is so out of all proportion to her failings that it’s truly harrowing.
I met Mayara Magri at the Royal Ballet and Opera the day after her stage call, with one week to go before her debut as Manon (24 Oct). Manon is not a sympathetic character: her willingness to forego love and sell herself for riches and a certain status in the Paris demi-monde is in glaring contrast to Des Grieux’s love and unwavering devotion. But having read Abbé Prévost’s book, Manon Lescaut, on which the ballet is based, and thought deeply about the role, Mayara Magri will not be judgemental about Manon.
“I do see why people wouldn’t relate to her choices and would feel like, oh, why would she do that? But what we have to remember is that this story was written about women at that time, and that she just took the chances that were given her to get out of poverty. She wanted to be someone, and that was the only way, by selling herself to a man who had money. And I feel like she just uses the opportunities that come her way. She’s human.”
MacMillan’s choreography is hugely demanding, but doesn’t frighten Magri, who reminds me, “I’ve always been a very technical ballerina in the classical world, I’ve always been in the demanding stuff, so Manon doesn’t feel like the hardest work, technically, for me”. But MacMillan has left plenty of room for interpretation, for each dancer to create her own Manon. In my lifetime I’ve seen quite a few Manons and each one has been different. So, I asked Mayara Magri to tell me about her Manon.
“I feel it’s a very well layered character. She is vulnerable and pure in Act I – she has that step going down towards the pit, the same step is repeated in Acts I, II and III, and she makes that step look different depending on where she is in her life and her mind, and I feel like that progression is so important to make the audience understand what is she about and how she is affected by the influences around her: the interest of someone rich who can make her something that she always dreamed of, but also the love of Des Grieux.
“What I’m going to try to do is to really layer each moment of her progression as a character and try to be pure in Act I, and confident [as Monsieur GM’s mistress] in Act II, because she has power and she commands the room. And then there’s Act III, where she loses everything.”
She explains by demonstrating the movement with head, shoulders, arms…
“Whenever I am with Reece Clarke, who is my Des Grieux, I try to just change completely how I hold my body. For example, my whole self gets a little bit more grounded and my shoulders a little bit more pulled down. My neck gets a little bit softer. In the bedroom pas de deux there’s spontaneity, nothing is being held back. And then, whenever she’s with GM, there is this sort of coldness about her, the way she looks at people. She holds her head, there’s not much spontaneity.”
Mayara Magri is being coached by Zenaida Yanowsky, in her day one of the Royal Ballet’s most intelligent and interesting dancers, and she acknowledges Yanowsky’s input in helping her think deeply and shape the character, the way in which Yanowsky pulls her back to ask “what are you thinking? What are you actually trying to portray here?”
There is, however, another important influence in how she is developing her Manon – that of her life partner, fellow Royal Ballet Principal, Matthew Ball.
Ball is himself an experienced Des Grieux, and will dance the role in the current run of Manon, though not with Magri.
“We’ve talked a lot about it. I always watched him doing the role. He’s a caring partner as well, and I always appreciate the way he does things. We have actually performed the bedroom pas de deux together, but in galas outside. So he taught me a lot, what to do and what not to do. He has definitely helped. He watched my stage call yesterday and he wrote me some notes.”
Manon comes at an especially busy time at the Royal Ballet, sharing rehearsal space, as well as physical and mental stamina with the two demanding works that make up the Visionaries double bill, where Magri will also dance. Now 32-years-old and an experienced dancer with a growing portfolio of lead roles, Mayara Magri feels Manon has come at the just right time in her life.
“I feel like I’m in a very good moment to experience this role, to have good understanding of the ballet. It’s my first time [as Manon], and hopefully, when it comes back in two, three years time, I’ll be someone else. I’ll be in another place in my life, and maybe I’ll see the world differently, but I’m excited to gather everything I’ve lived and seen into these two performance that I have now.”
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner Image credit: Mayara Magri and Reece Clarke in rehearsal for Manon © RBO 2026 Andrej Uspenski)
Mayara Magri dances Manon at the RBO on Sat 24 Oct at 1 pm and Fri 30 Oct at 7.30 pm. All info tickets here