Catch-up, Pt 2: Mayerling 2013 – what a way to go!

One of the most extraordinary things I’ve seen this summer was the retirement performance of Johan Kobborg, quitting the stage with a bang (in every sense) in “Mayerling”. 

I hadn’t made any special plans to be at his farewell.  I’d been meaning for ages to see if I could catch him in action next time the Royal Ballet revived this phenomenally dark and powerful piece, as I’d heard he was a really tremendous interpreter of the lead role of Crown Prince Rudolf.  So; they brought it back this summer, and I booked a ticket; then a very short time beforehand – I think it was no more than a week or two – he announced his retirement, and his onstage and off-stage partner Alina Cojocaru announced she too was leaving the company – and this particular performance was to be their last appearance at Covent Garden.

Getting a seat for a beloved dancer’s farewell can be pretty tricky; getting a seat for two of them leaving at once would I imagine be proportionately harder still.  But I had managed it, by sheer random luck.  Even without that, I would be glad I’d been there anyway, since it was a terrific performance and both leads were on absolutely smashing form (as God knows they need to be – on top of this being a very demanding ballet, some of the lifts in Rudolf’s series of big pas de deux look bloody dangerous to me).  The added poignancy of ending with a long, long sequence of increasingly emotional curtain calls just added to an already dramatic atmosphere.  All in all it was a memorable evening.

And as for Mr Kobborg – well, to be able to retire at 40, and go out dancing this role, possibly the toughest thing in the repertoire for a male dancer (physically and I would guess also psychologically) this well, well, that’s an impressive way to go.  Not sliding off quietly into the shadows, half-unnoticed, but going with a full-on, explosively physical, high-drama thump to the guts to everyone in the audience.  I think that’s called stopping while you’re at the top; good on you, man!

I gather there are wheels within wheels in the background to this story (if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor!).  I suppose that’s inevitable sometimes in any large organisation.  Being as I am easily as much of a balletomane now as I was as a little girl, I hope very much that any problems behind the scenes at the company can be resolved sensibly and without ill-will on anyone’s part, since all I want is to go on getting lashings of top-class ballet in London.  I’m not going to look online to see who’s been washing whose dirty linen in public! 

So long as things don’t reach levels of animosity of Bolshoi proportions I’m fairly hopeful...  I don’t really want to know the nitty-gritty of company politics, I’m afraid; I feel it’s rather like wanting to know the ins-and-outs of an actor’s personal relationships.  There’s a reason why it’s called a “private” life, after all.

Just let them do the work, and do it well; just give them the means to go on doing that.  I don’t mind who’s shagging who, or any other personal matters, for dancers, for singers, for actors, or indeed for the people who invent new flavours for Ben & Jerry’s.  I don’t want to know if there are managerial disagreements, or who is misbehaving or exceeding their remit, or anything, and while I’m sorry for anyone who’s losing out or feels hard-done-by (and I’d much rather they didn’t feel that way, simply because no-one likes to), nonetheless, unless it’s ruining their work  I don’t actually mind if I don’t know about it.  

Is that blinkered of me? - or, perhaps, cold and uncaring?  Perhaps it is.  It’s the work I admire them for, these performers.  Okay, I admit occasionally the eye candy aspect comes into it! – but basically it’s the work I love them for, and it’s the work that I want to see going on, long after any individual performer's career winds down; handed-down in good shape, revivified with each new generation.   

Knowing that people are airing their grievances in public leaves me feeling I'm expected to take sides.  And I can never know the whole story, since the most I’d ever see would be twitter messages and the like.  So I don’t want to be called upon to make that judgement.

I don’t want to see established company principals, most of them real heroes and heroines of mine, departing in umbrage, or sticking around but feeling underused and resentful.  That would be simply awful.  I also don’t want to see talented dancers lower down the company feeling under-used, or over-used and taken for granted, for that matter - that would be awful, too.  I’m human, I can feel sympathy for anyone having a rough time at work.  But for me the bottom line is that I want to be able to go on going into the West End and seeing tremendous performances by great dancers in wonderful rep.   So long as the RB (and not forgetting the also-excellent ENB) can continue to supply that, I’m happy. 

I’ve also missed the goodbyes of Mara Galeazzi and Leanne Benjamin.  Big sighs of regret for both of them, as I shall miss them.  I did at least get to see Ms Benjamin one last time, as she was doing a stint with Carlos Acosta’s latest summer venture at the Coliseum last week, Classical Collection; a lovely mixture of high-classical and high-dramatic excerpts, and a cracking cast giving it their all.  So at least the last thing I saw the wonderful Ms Benjamin in was the almost unbearably-lovely “Pie Jesu” from Macmillan’s “Requiem”.  >Sob< - but again, that’s a good way to go.

And as one chapter closes (& Ms Benjamin's chapter has been not only glorious but also splendidly long!) another is near the beginning; and that is right, that is as it should be.  That same evening of excerpts brought me the chance to see Melissa Hamilton dancing the "Dying Swan"; and I honestly don't think I shall ever forget that sight.  By gum, that lass has IT, and in spadefuls.  Oomph, stage presence, pizzazz, grace, command, call it what you will.  I've been a fan of hers for some years now and last week she bouréed her way still further into my heart, and left me crying like a silly kid into my binoculars.  So, so beautiful...

How now, a rat! (stabs thru' the arras)...

I met a rat last night at the cinema.

Well, I hope it was a mouse, but in London you never know. It could have been a ghost. Whatever it is, it lives in number four screening room at the Odeon in Whiteleys, and it is bl**dy noisy.

I did go to the "Mayerling" screening last night. It was a bit of an adventure, as I’d never been on a number 27 bus past Hammersmith before, and discovered it follows an unusually convoluted route, even for London transport. At one point it was happily heading along Holland Park Avenue going the wrong way; I nearly got off in a panic, but hung on and had faith, and eventually after doing more loops than a dancing meercat was deposited at the top of Queensway.

It was 5 to 7 and the film was meant to start at 7, so I dashed into Whiteleys, ran up the escalators (I need to do more of this; am out of shape after nearly three months of idleness), bought a ticket, and grabbed a classic cinema-goer’s unhealthy supper of cheesy nachos, fizzy orange and popcorn – so bad it was good, if you get my meaning. Only to find the film didn’t start until 7.30, despite the fact that everywhere that advertised it in advance had said 7pm. The nice bunch of Holland Park types sitting with me were all complaining, but the cinema wouldn’t budge, so we all sat in the dark for 30 minutes, me munching while they grumbled (in a well-bred way) about being kept waiting.

At last, as I chomped up my last nubs of popcorn, the film started. I didn't know then that soon I'd be hearing a lot more chomping, not of my own, and I settled down to enjoy the ballet.

“Mayerling”, as I mentioned before, is dark, dark stuff. It tells the story, in a compressed form, of the last years in the life of Rudolph, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary - a deeply troubled bloke it would seem. Over the course of just over two hours we see Rudolph get married off to an eligible girl he loathes, flirt with her sister, break up with his mistress, express his neurotically intense love for his mother, get drunk with his other mistress, conspire with a lot of shifty Hungarians, fall madly for Countess Mary Vetsera and have a wild affair with her, and finally shoot both her and himself dead in the royal hunting lodge at, you’ve guessed it, Mayerling.

The leading role is huge; the dancer playing Rudolph is onstage for all but one scene, and does a total of (I think) nine long duets, with five different ballerinas, culminating in three with Mary Vetsera that are astonishing, even by MacMillan standards, for their athleticism and violent sensuality. Although watching filmed ballet has its downside – not least the simple fact that the choice as to what to look at has already been made for you – there are pluses too. The big gains are that one gets to see the nuances of expression, and that the extraordinary demands of the choreography are made fully apparent.

Demands to which Edward Watson rises magnificently. His portrayal of Rudolph is both vile and deeply tragic, and he hurls himself into the physical challenges with a bravura recklessness. I know I’m always rabbiting on about his work, but I do think he is an astonishing dancer. Beside him Mara Galeazzi produced the requisite intensity as Mary Vetsera; their duets were explosive. The role of Mary is odd; she barely appears until halfway through the action, and then has to come out of the start gate at full throttle, as it were. She is as neurotic and obsessed as Rudolph, she shares his infatuation with skulls and his death-wish, and once she comes on the scene there is really nowhere things can go for the couple but downhill.

Steven McRae was marvellous in the smallish part of Bratfisch, Rudolph’s “personal cab driver and entertainer” (now there’s an unusual job description). His second solo, which can seem evidence of the character’s idiocy – dancing like a clown while the despairing lovers plan their suicide pact – came over here with painful feeling. One suddenly sensed how as he dances he would be overhearing their conversation, and becoming horribly aware that by bringing Mary to Rudolph he has not so much done them a kindness as sealed their fate.

Cindy Jourdain, with her beautiful calm face and long eyelids, was an elegant, neurotic Empress Elisabeth, icy in stillness, then boiling in the ferocity of her arguments with her passionate son. Gary Avis was suavely sexy as her lover. Their duet, the one moment when we see the Empress allow herself to unwind and be a little human, was tender and sad and sensual. In the middle of this story of relationships based on violence, obsession and control, it is oddly appropriate that the one moment of gentleness reciprocated is in a pas de deux of two adulterers.

So it was a good evening at the flicks; all but the company in the cinema. I don’t mean the bevy of middle-aged and elderly West London balletomanes sitting around me. I mean the thing eating behind my seat. I was in the back row. It started up, champ champ chomp chomp, and made gnawing noises steadily through the whole of Acts two and three. Not much can distract me from brilliant performers doing their thing, but the nagging fear that a rat was going to run over my foot was unpleasantly insistent. It didn’t – run over my foot, that is – but it chewed and scuffled endlessly, right behind me, for well over an hour. Whiteleys, you have a problem in Screen Four.

Wonderful, the things people are concerned about…

I’ve just noticed that the Odeon at Whiteleys is screening a filmed performance of the Royal Ballet in Kenneth Macmillan’s “Mayerling” next Monday evening – I’m thinking of going (especially as Edward Watson is dancing Rudolph, yum – and yes, I know that’s a fairly kinky yum). But I loved the caveat posted on Odeon Cinemas’ website: “Warning: Contains a scene of suicide, a bordello scene and smoking”. Don’t take your ballet mad little daughter to this, she might see a cigarette…

Funny how they omit to mention that “Mayerling” also contains a fair quantity of Macmillan’s signature balletic sex, including a pretty frightening rape, as well as intravenous drug use and a scene in which the main character practically gets it on with his mother... Ah, but smoking is serious.

Still, if it’s Mr Watson doing it, whether it’s smoking, having copious amounts of ballet-sex or shooting himself, I’d like to watch. As I said, it’s a kinky yum.