Times Culture on Mayerling and the Royal Ballet’s golden generation of male dancers

It’s fitting that the Royal Ballet is reviving Mayerling — and arguably the most demanding male role in the Covent Garden repertoire — when it has so many outstanding male dancers. Audiences are spoilt for choice: Matthew Ball, William Bracewell, Ryoichi Hirano, Vadim Muntagirov, Marcelino Sambé. It’s the strongest, most popular male line-up the Royal Ballet has seen in decades.⁠ ⁠ What’s remarkable is the breadth of talent and technique these days, 26 years since Billy Elliot made it cool for boys to do ballet. The Russian-bred Muntagirov is a supreme classicist born to play the fairytale prince; the Portuguese star Sambé is a romantic dancer who moves with an instinctive ardour; the British pair of Bracewell and Ball bring passionate intelligence to widely diverse roles. Hirano is a Japanese dancer with remarkable stature and a flair for playing bad boys. And because they have nothing in common, these five will approach the role’s cruel, dissolute Crown Prince Rudolf from completely different angles.