Mayerling - Ballet - Season 22/23 Programming - Opéra national de Paris

  • Ballet

    Mayerling

    Kenneth MacMillan

    Palais Garnier - from 25 October to 12 November 2022

    Antoni Taulé / Galerie XII 

See all informations

Mayerling

Palais Garnier - from 25 October to 12 November 2022

Ballet

Mayerling

Kenneth MacMillan

Palais Garnier - from 25 October to 12 November 2022

2h40 with 2 intervals

  • Pre‑opening for the young : 22 Oct. 2022

    Opening night : 25 Oct. 2022

About

In few words:

First performed in 1978 by the Royal Ballet in London, Mayerling, along with L’Histoire de Manon, is Kenneth MacMillan’s most famous ballet. For this vast, three‑act fresco, the British choreographer drew inspiration from an historic event: the suicide of the archduke Rodolphe, heir to the Austrian throne, in the company of his mistress, the baroness Marie Vetsera, in a hunting lodge in Mayerling, near Vienna, in 1889. What could have driven the son of the emperor Franz‑Joseph I and Sissi to such an act? Kenneth MacMillan unpicks the social, political and personal pressures at work, alternating between the grandiose and the intimate. Underpinned by the romantic music of Franz Liszt, his highly virtuoso choreography, providing some of the most demanding male roles in the repertoire, portrays in masterly fashion the emotions of characters ill‑used by history.

CHARACTERS

Rudolf: Heir to the Austrian crown
Mary Vetsera: Daughter of Baroness Helena Vetsera, Rudolf’s lover
Mary Larisch: Countess, Rudolf’s former lover and chaperone of Mary Vetsera
Stephanie: Princess, Rudolf’s wife

Franz Josef:  Emperor of Austria, Rudolf’s father   
Elisabeth:  Empress of Austria, Rudolf’s mother
Mitzi Caspar:  Rudolf’s mistress
Bratfisch: Rudolf’s coachman and friend
Bay Middleton: Colonel, Empress’s lover

  • Opening
  • First part 40 mn
  • Intermission 20 mn
  • Second part 50 mn
  • Intermission 20 mn
  • Third part 30 mn
  • End

Media coverage

  • The costumes are numerous, extremely elaborate, with a rare distinction and impeccable finishes.

    Alain Attyasse / ResMusica

Performances

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Backstage

  • Podcast Mayerling

    Podcast

    Podcast Mayerling

  • Stéphane Bern on Mayerling

    Article

    Stéphane Bern on Mayerling

  • Draw-me Mayerling

    Video

    Draw-me Mayerling

  • Mayerling, a psychological tour de force

    Video

    Mayerling, a psychological tour de force

© Ann Ray / OnP

Podcast Mayerling

07’

Podcast

Podcast Mayerling

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique

By Jean-Baptiste Urbain

"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" offers original incursions into the season thanks to broadcasts produced by France Musique and the Paris Opera. 

For each opera or ballet production, Charlotte Landru-Chandès (opera) and Jean-Baptiste Urbain (dance), present the works and artists you are going to discover when you attend performances in our theatres.

© Ann Ray / OnP

Stéphane Bern on Mayerling

Article

Stéphane Bern on Mayerling

Imagining Monarchy

01’

By Antony Desvaux

To mark the entry of Mayerling into the Paris Opera Ballet's repertoire, Stéphane Bern offers us qa number of keys to understanding the appeal of royal families. Kenneth MacMillan's ballet, created in 1978, is based on the true story of Rudolf, the crown prince of Austria-Hungary. Stéphane Bern discusses the symbolic role played by kings, queens, princes and princesses in our culture, from an early age through children's stories. Royal families, mirrors of everyone's families, offer everyone a common base, between political reality and mythology. Royal figures, which have become archetypes, continue to fascinate and keep alive a certain imaginary of the monarchy.

There are the historical facts and beyond their resonance, their impact. The Mayerling tragedy is therefore open to all manner of interpretations. Here is an heir who is unhappy in his domestic life, who has made a marriage of reason. Here is his lover Mary Vetsera. Both are found dead in the hunting lodge at Mayerling. Is this a romantic drama, an impossible love that ends in a double suicide? Does this suicide conceal a political drama? Rodolf frequented progressive circles, unlike his father. Was he murdered? All hypotheses are possible.

If this personal and family drama is of universal appeal, it is because these are emblematic figures who speak to our subconscious. As children, we are told stories about kings, queens, fairies, princesses... As Bruno Bettelheim said in Psychoanalysis of Fairy Tales, this takes us back to our collective imagination.

Rudolf represented more than his own self. He was meant to prolong a dynasty that drew its history from the deepest roots of an immense empire. For a time, his suicide overshadowed the future. Only at a symbolic level, of course, because there is always another heir, and others took his place. The death of the Hapsburg heir affected not only the Austrian people but all peoples. A whole mosaic of nationalities saw in him the bearer of the future. Rudolf no longer belonged to himself.

Kings and queens are historical figures who transcend themselves. In so doing they become symbolic. These characters believe they are human beings, but are in fact personalities who have sacrificed their personal lives in order to live a collective adventure. They are not always aware of this and do not necessarily accept it either. We saw this in the British royal family with Diana. She desperately needed to be happy, but we don't ask symbolic figures to be happy... They are sacrificial figures.

They hold up a mirror in which everyone reads what they want to read: ancestral virtues, for example, aristocratic values. Kings and queens are of a different essence, they rise above us mere mortals. This is what we want to believe, of course, but all operas, books, films, novels and all mythology have been made up of this, since the beginning of time. These personalities are above the human condition, halfway between the agora and Olympus.

Mayerling (saison 22/23)
Mayerling (saison 22/23) © Ann Ray / OnP

We need these figures. They come from elsewhere, they bear the patina of time, they have a stronger historical heritage than we perceive in our genealogy and our own history, they live over a long period of time, whereas today we live in the immediate. This is what the Queen of England represented, for example.

Royal families are bearers of history but also of identity, even national identity, since they generally bear the name of the country over which they reign. This is why they bring us together, symbolically, over time. These families offer us a whole palette of colours. Theodore Zeldin said: "If you take the royal family of England, you have every palette of society, everyone feels represented by one of the figures." So you have the supporters of Kate Middleton and those of Meghan Markle, the flawless or the rebellious. There's the black sheep, like Harry, and the "perfect boy", William. Of course, they are often neurotic figures. This family holds a mirror up to you, they are archetypes. That's what makes the myth.

Many works of art are inspired by the world of the monarchy and its imagery. How does a French observer feel about them? There is undoubtedly a bit of nostalgia, a bit of guilt too, because let's not forget that we cut off our King's head. The act of regicide is similar to parricide, which we can see in novels and operas. The father has been killed. There is something quite violent about it. Tragic. There is also a nostalgia for a golden age. There is something sacred about it, both mythological and religious. It touches on something that makes sense, and that makes a nation. In the United Kingdom, we recently saw a whole nation gather around a coffin. It is a very powerful image. We couldn't transpose that to France. It's becoming complicated to unite around a common value. All this fuels a kind of sweet nostalgia, an unfulfilled dream. De Gaulle said: "The French have a taste for princes and they go abroad to find them." Great Britain and Monaco are our substitute monarchies. We had the Sun King, they only have the Sleeping King: a symbolic figure, who doesn't do much, but as long as he's there, we can sleep easy. These figures anchor us in history and give us a sense of permanence.

I was lucky enough to see Nureyev and Baryshnikov dance and it was an unforgettable experience. I also remember a Swan Lake I was lucky enough to see at the Mariinsky. And what about the Paris Opera's Défilé du Ballet, with all the dancers, from the Étoiles to the pupils? It is a magnificent moment, showing off the Palais Garnier in all its depth. We were talking about the Sun King. It was Louis XIV who created the Royal Academy of Dance, the ancestor of the Paris Opera, and organised dance in France. It is both a very free and a very disciplined art. I have always been fascinated by the talent of dancers, the way they express with their bodies the emotions conveyed by music. Dance expresses all human passions, which can be personal, intimate, like Giselle, and at the same time historical, like Mayerling. These great dramas are the common basis of mythologies that move us all and bring us together.

Interview by Antony Desvaux (September 2022)

© Matthieu Pajot

Draw-me Mayerling

01:03’

Video

Draw-me Mayerling

Understand the plot in 1 minute

By Matthieu Pajot

First performed in 1978 by the Royal Ballet in London, Mayerling, along with L’Histoire de Manon, is Kenneth MacMillan’s most famous ballet. For this vast, three‑act fresco, the British choreographer drew inspiration from an historic event: the suicide of the archduke Rodolphe, heir to the Austrian throne, in the company of his mistress, the baroness Marie Vetsera, in a hunting lodge in Mayerling, near Vienna, in 1889. What could have driven the son of the emperor Franz‑Joseph I and Sissi to such an act? Kenneth MacMillan unpicks the social, political and personal pressures at work, alternating between the grandiose and the intimate. Underpinned by the romantic music of Franz Liszt, his highly virtuoso choreography, providing some of the most demanding male roles in the repertoire, portrays in masterly fashion the emotions of characters ill‑used by history.

© Ann Ray / OnP

Mayerling, a psychological tour de force

03:53’

Video

Mayerling, a psychological tour de force

MacMillan through the eyes of Karl Burnett

By Antony Desvaux, Anne-Solen Douguet

As Mayerling enters the Paris Opera Ballet's repertoire, guest répétiteur Karl Burnett discusses his work in passing on the work. A specialist in Benesh notation, he worked with Kenneth MacMillan and is currently directing the choreography for the Company's dancers. He discusses MacMillan's virtuoso neo-classical style and the way in which each step is linked to the ballet's storyline. The truly sombre role of Prince Rudolf, one of the repertoire's most complex, is a psychological and technical tour de force for the dancers.  

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