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    Guns and Roses

    Houston Ballet's triumphant Mayerling surges above the storm with night full of hope for the arts

    Joseph Campana
    Sep 23, 2017 | 4:26 pm

    Some nights are special: a premiere, a gala, a promotion, a retirement. These are important but anticipated triumphs. At Houston Ballet’s performance of Kenneth Macmillan’s Mayerling, Houstonians were treated to something truly extraordinary in the company’s first outing in a still storm-ravaged city.

     

    It was a night full of the hope of the arts world getting back to what it does so well. Mayor Sylvester Turner, a steady hand for the city during this unprecedented storm, graced the occasion. On stage, he was equally comforting. “The show must go on,” Turner said.

     

    And boy did it.

     

    With the Wortham Theater Center out of commission until at least mid-May, the ballet, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Symphony, Inprint, Da Camera, and others have scrambled for viable venues. What a happy accident the Houston Ballet landed in Sarofim Hall in the Hobby Center.

     

    Change is hard, though, so it all felt strange at first. Guards with security wands screened us, producing long lines to enter. Regular ballet goers struggled to find seats in a strange venue. The ushers too seemed overwhelmed. “Just make it work—sit anywhere,” one insisted as the lights dimmed. During scene changes, an unusual amount of commotion and noise filtered out.

     

    But there was an intimacy in Sarofim Hall I’m not always accustomed to in the Wortham Theater Center. The dancers felt closer, more at eye level. The orchestra was nearer and more visible. I had a fine view of principal harpist Joan Eidman’s sweeping across her strings all night. During an intermission, someone nearby said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing more ballet here.”

     

    In any season, the addition of Kenneth Macmillan’s 1978 Mayerling to the repertoire would be a major story. The rarely performed ballet shows Macmillan at his best, gives Houston Ballet access to a work not regularly in repertoire elsewhere in the country, and complements Macmillan’s Manon, which the company performs beautifully. John Lanchbery’s arrangement makes the most of the works of Franz Liszt, alternately eerie and stately and doomed. And who can complain about live piano and an aria on stage?

     

    It’s a testament to the captivating power of this work that minutes into the action, thoughts of the stricken Wortham Theater Center fled almost entirely. The often-overwhelming plot of the ballet is drawn directly from historical accounts of the lives, loves, and lunacies of the aristocrats of the Austria-Hungarian empire and named for where it all went terribly wrong. The cruel and unstable Crown Prince Rudolf, magnificently played by Connor Walsh, is a revolver- and skull-toting thrill seeker descending into syphilis- and morphine-induced madness before our eyes. It's no surprise when the ballet culminates with not one but two lives coming to a halt at the end of of that revolver.

     

    Rudolf boasts not only a current mistress and a former mistress but also a favorite (or two or three or more?) at the local brothel. He enjoys an awfully close and tempestuous relationship with his mother, Empress Elisabeth, who also boasts a man on the side.

     

    Like mother, like son, apparently.

     

    Macmillan demands much of audiences and dancers alike. Love is often rough sex barely dressed up, if at all. Consequently, movement is intricately twisted, the onstage architecture of bodies complex, and the psychology queasy. And unlike many classic story ballets, performers must create an utter seamlessness between dancing and acting.

     

    No one was more adept at this than Walsh, reckless and unleashed and dancing with an abandon I’ve never seen in him. Walsh has always seemed perhaps the most technically precise dancer in the company, which doesn’t always suit the languorous romances and simple psychologies of classic prince roles. Not surprisingly, Walsh was more than ready for the physical demands of this central role. It’s rare that the spotlight is not on Prince Rudolph. But the psychological demands, which he met head on, are even more extreme.

     

    Early on Walsh balances the urgencies of competing mistresses. His former mistress Marie Larisch (Sara Webb) solicits his attention as his new wife, Princess Stephanie (Melody Mennite), promenades for the court while his soon-to-be mistress,Mary Vestera (Karina Gonzalez), waits in the wings. Bounced around from the coyly enticing Webb to the demurely skittish Mennite to the aggressively eager Gonzalez literally spins him around. Add to that maddening visions of his mother’s affair and the ravages of disease and drugs you a man who literally changes his mood and movement minute by minute.

     

    The prince’s descent into madness in the final act requires that most difficult of tasks for a virtuosic dancer—exceptional control paired with mentally compromised and physically inhibited behaviors. What a feat to master: bravo, Mr. Walsh.

     

    Macmillan’s choreography converts into exquisitely tortured movement the debased longings of these characters. Movement is simultaneously perfect and blemished. A pas de deux is never just a pas de deux. Maybe the lovers twist their bodies outrageously. Maybe a life ends with a partner dragged awkwardly across the floor. A caress can turn into a choke. Perhaps the lovers are watched. Or, as for Walsh and Gonzalez, you have a pas de trois with a skull. What strange bedfellows Macmillan makes!

     

     Mayerling is made with a great male lead in mind, but it’s amazing just how many dancers shine. There were absolute scene stealers all night long. The magnetic Ian Casaday appears briefly, as Empress Elisabeth’s lover and suddenly it’s as if he’s the star of the show. Whenever Webb appeared it was as if Manon herself had arrived to seize the title role.

     

    No detail seemed too small for Macmillan’s lavish attention, making small parts profound. Prince Rudolf’s four companions appear to deliver the news of the land. They pop out in sequence from four openings in a red curtain and the news literally travels from body to body. Princess Elisabeth’s maids made clockwork perfection of their work. The one sour note, in an otherwise intricate and rousing brothel scene, was the wooden performance of Yuriko Kajiya, who played Mitzi Caspar, prime prostitute and mistress to the prince, with a distracting stiffness counter to Macmillan’s sensibility.

     

    Though drawn from history, Mayerling has the feel of 19th century novels. Entire nations might rip themselves to shreds because Rudolf loves Mary but no longer Marie and he only married Stephanie because he has to while Elisabeth is hot for Bay but must keep Franz Josef from knowing. What marvelous distraction aristocrats make as they fall apart.

     

    Yet real destruction is always near, as history tells us, as Mayerling shows us, and as Houstonians know all too well.

     

    ------------

     

     Houston Ballet's production of Mayerling runs September 22-24, at the Hobby Center's Sarofim Hall.

    Connor Walsh at Prince Rudolf and Sara Webb as Countess Maria Larish in the Houston Ballet production of Mayerling.

    Houston Ballet Mayerling Connor Walsh as Prince Rudolf and Sara Webb as Countess Marie Larish
      
    Photo by Amitava Sarkar courtesy of Houston Ballet
    Connor Walsh at Prince Rudolf and Sara Webb as Countess Maria Larish in the Houston Ballet production of Mayerling.
    dance
    news/arts

    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

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