© John Ross 'Mayerling' reviews Cope in reviews Rojo in reviews recent RB reviews NBT 'Midsummer Night's reviews 'Midsummer Night's reviews Samaai in reviews recent NBT reviews more Jeffery Taylor reviews Web version held on Ballet.co by kind permission of Jeffery Taylor and the Sunday Express Express Website

At the start of the work’s current run, Cope danced Rudolf, heir to the Hapsburg dynasty, a drug crazed schizophrenic who copulated with anything in a bustle, beat up his wife before murdering his mistress and shooting himself at a hunting lodge called Mayerling.

After a lifetime’s typecasting as hero, the elegance of Cope’s technique is a perfect foil for the volcanic forces bursting his skull that ultimately reduce his body to a writhing heap of pain. And boy, does he writhe. From the opening stateliness of an Imperial ball, waltzing with his wife Stephanie (Gemma Bond) his face almost jumps off his head as jolts of unspeakable urges take him, her and us by surprise.

The women, including a superbly uptight, incompetent mother, Empress Elizabeth (Zenaida Yanowsky), come and go in a series of increasingly violent duets that drain the dancer’s stamina as well as the character’s sanity. Then just when you think he, and you, cannot take any more, he meets his Nemesis in the tiny but dynamic shape of Tamara Rojo. Rojo, as Mary Vetsera, a blue blooded tart, is a ticking sex bomb eager to show Rudolf a thing or two about going too far.

Rojo’s Mary, intrigued by Rudolf’s bedroom games with a pistol, realises there is only one thrill left for herself, her Prince and his demons – death. What a performance, what dancers - Cope and Rojo, two stars spectacularly colliding last week and redefining the future of British dance. Who said ballet was airy fairy? Well, David Nixon, Northern Ballet Theatre’s director does, actually. His good natured romp through A Midsummer Night’s Dream hit London last week on its 12 week UK tour.

His romance is mounted on a small touring ballet company with all its rivalries, unrequited loves, even a fascist director – all taken, presumably, from life. This human emotional morass coalesces into fairyland as the dancers sleep on the overnight express to their next date.
 

Nixon has a lot of fun with Oberon (Hiranao Takahashi), Titania (Desire Samaai) and a host of fairies of every gender in a Flash Gordon, intergalactic setting. His ass’s headed Bottom (Adam Temple) is bawdy, his lovers are nearly naked and very funny as Nixon shamelessly exposes his own lust for life and tongue in cheek take on human frailties.

Central to the work’s well deserved success are the designs of Duncan Hayler. His elegant black and silver rehearsal studio transforms into King’s Cross Station, the departing train, the sleeper coach and ultimately a dreamscape in space where the serious frivolity is danced out by what is rapidly becoming one of the best bunch of dancers in the country. Nixon’s risky gamble of challenging his dancers while developing his own choreographic skills has luckily paid huge dividends. Not to be missed.