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The Arts Intel Report

Mayerling

Karina González as Baroness Mary Vetsera and Connor Walsh as Crown Prince Rudolf in the Houston Ballet’s Mayerling.

May 23 – June 2, 2024
601 Preston St, Houston, TX 77002, United States

“A greatly talented choreographer is taking risks,” wrote dance critic Arlene Croce of Kenneth MacMillan and his Mayerling, created for the Royal Ballet in 1978. This three-act study of royal privilege and pathology—containing not two or three pas de deux but seven (!)—tells the story of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, who ended it all in a hunting lodge, in a suicide pact with his mistress, Mary Vetsera. Mayerling had its company premiere at the Houston Ballet in 2017 and was a triumph. The company brings it back this spring. —Laura Jacobs

Photo: Amitava Sarkar/courtesy of the Houston Ballet