London - Event

Kenneth MacMillan's dramatic Mayerling returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with the Royal Ballet. Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo are each one of five to dance the role of Crown Prince Rudolph and Mary Vestera repectively.

To John Lanchberry's orchestration of Liszt's heady music, Mayerling explores events up to the night of 30/31 January 1889 when, in Rudolph's Austrian hunting lodge at Mayerling, a wedding celebration turns to double death. Officially Rudolf died of a heart attack (with no mention of Mary's death). But the ballet follows a theory that it may have been a suicide pact between Rudolph and Mary, his mistress, leaving Princess Stephanie as his widow.

MacMillan fashions a grand, full-length ballet silhouetting all-too-human emotions against the pomp of the Austro-Hungarian court.