Mayerling review: A rich revival of MacMillan’s ballet of doomed obsession

Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling is a ballet of doomed obsession. The hero is a prince, but this historical drama couldn’t be further from fairytale: it follows Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, from his disastrous marriage to his death in a suicide pact with his teenaged mistress, Mary Vetsera. MacMillan creates a whole world of needy, driven people, trapped in a stifling web of court politics, repression, and destructive emotion.

This Royal Ballet revival marks 30 years since MacMillan’s death and pays powerful tribute to one of its defining choreographers. From impassioned duets to tiny gestures, it also allows this company to flaunt its gift for storytelling.

Ryoichi Hirano shows Rudolf’s decline as he lurches deeper into tragedy. At first, his dancing has a lyrical stretch, a clarity of line that twists up over the course of the ballet. In the grand court scenes, you’re always aware of where his attention rests: yearning for some comfort from his mother, or distracting himself from his duties without care for scandal.

As his former mistress, Countess Larisch, Laura Morera is both calculating and desperate, clinging to Rudolf as a source of status and because she loves him. She’s pulling the strings, yet the scale of her gestures looks fated, a woman caught up in the narrative she creates.

She and Natalia Osipova are extraordinary in the scene where she tells Mary’s fortune, grooming her to be Rudolf’s next lover. Osipova is a giddy schoolgirl with a headlong crush, ardent and naive. When the cards promise love, she explodes into dance, all lush limbs and sharp footwork.

In her scenes with Rudolf, Osipova’s Mary is primed with his fantasies – but Osipova shows us how they become Mary’s, too, as she responds to his fascination with guns and death.

In a very strong cast, many performances shine out. Marianela Nuñez gives Mitzi Caspar, another of Rudolf’s mistresses, a glowing glamour. The delicacy of Francesca Hayward’s dancing underlines the fragility of poor Stephanie, Rudolf’s wife.

This revival makes some small changes: I miss seeing the coffin lowered in the grim funeral scene that frames the action. But the onstage world is brilliantly rich, from an attendant tutting over a Stephanie’s discarded nightdress to the courtiers jostling for position. Koen Kessels conducts the Liszt score, bringing out the dark drama. Nicholas Georgiadis’s opulent designs underline the power and the airlessness of this court, glittering and grand as it sweeps its way to disaster.

Until 30 November. www.roh.org.uk. Cinema relay on 9 October