To those whose sense of history derives, as mine does, from the thumb-nail sketch offered in high school, the First World War arose from a tinderbox of overcommitted alliances that was ignited by the ...

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 ...

Mayerling is an experience - let no one tell you otherwise. Kenneth MacMillan’s 1978 ballet delves into the true story of the 19th century Austro-Hungarian court, and specifically the experience of ...

Scottish Ballet are restaging Kenneth MacMillan's 1978 masterpiece – but what really happened between the ill-fated couple who inspired it? Saul David is a bestselling historian and broadcaster. His ...

Kenneth MacMillan’s 1978 ballet about a prince and his young baroness mistress is back in London with exquisite performances that build to a tragic end A scene from Mayerling by The Royal Ballet at ...

Prince of darkness: Ryoichi Hirano as Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, the drug-addled, gun-obsessed heir to an empire That said, there could be no better choice of ballet to mark the 30th ...

When Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling premiered in 1978 it was “revolutionary”, said Sarah Crompton in The Observer – taking ballet into hitherto unexplored realms of “psychosis and misery”. It is based ...

Kenneth MacMillan’s bleak psychological period piece is a gift for the Royal Ballet’s dancers, who take turns in performances of gripping, in-the-moment power When Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling was ...

With ‘Mayerling’, Kenneth MacMillan re-wrote ballet’s rule-book and created a lead role as great as Hamlet. Laura Thompson applauds the work’s return to Covent Garden. Insanely seductive: Melissa ...

As part of the Royal Opera House's #OurHouseToYourHouse series, the next full ballet streaming is the joyful, comic and enchanting La Fille Mal Gardée. Young farmhands, clog dances and ponies are the ...