Germany Thea Musgrave, Mary, Queen of Scots: Soloists, Actors and Refrain of Leipzig Opera, Gewandhaus Orchestra / Matthias Foremny (conductor), Leipzig Opera, 12.1.2024. (GT)
Manufacturing:
Director – Ilaria Lanzino
Units – Dirk Becker
Costumes – Annette Braun
Lighting designer – Stefan Jennerich
Dramaturgy – Marlene Hahn
Refrain director – Thomas Eitler-de Lint
Solid:
Mary, Queen of Scots – Nicole Chevalier
James Stewart, Earl of Moray – Franz Xaver Schlecht
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell – Sven Hjörleifsson
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley – Rupert Charlesworth
David Riccio – Sejong Chang
Cardinal Beaton – Randall Jakobsh
Lord Gordon – Goijo Jentjens
Earl of Morton – Richard Morrison
Earl of Ruthven – Dan Karlström
Mary Beaton – Augusta Kling
Mary Seton – Leah Weil
Mary Fleming – Lena Herrmann
Mary Livingston – Katharina von Hassel
Solo-Lord – Marian Müller
Few historic figures are as well-known and certainly extra tragic than Mary, Queen of Scots; quite a few books have been written about her life, notably by Stefan Zweig, and several other operas – essentially the most profitable of which is Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Maria Stuart by Sergei Slonimsky each of which have been carried out on the Edinburgh Worldwide Pageant. Thea Musgrave primarily based her libretto on the unpublished play Moray by the Peruvian playwright Amalia Elguera. Thea Musgrave’s fourth opera, Mary, Queen of Scots, was commissioned by Scottish Opera and was premiered on the King’s Theatre Edinburgh (with the composer conducting) throughout the EIF on 6 September 1977, following which it toured efficiently within the UK and to Stuttgart in Germany in 1980.
This new manufacturing at Leipzig premiered on 16 December 2023 and this efficiency was the third, with one other 4 performances via to February. The director Ilaria Lanzino describes her concepts for the staging: ‘After 13 years in France, Mary should return to her native Scotland to just accept the workplace of Queen. However throughout her absence, Scotland has been remodeled right into a land of intrigue and energy play, with Mary’s brother James and the noble lords often known as “The Wolves” combating for supremacy. The state of affairs turns into much more sophisticated as she is meant to take over as a lady. Mary is challenged to say herself on this opaque atmosphere and learn to safe her energy.’ Lanzino says that in her characterisation of Mary, she was impressed by the movies Promising Younger Lady and Anatomy of a Fall for the second and third acts.
For her manufacturing, Lanzino used recycled tables and furnishings to introduce an eco-friendly staging. ‘The desk embodies a stage of political energy. It will probably function a spot for peaceable dialogue and settlement, or it may be used as a platform to make dominant claims. There may very well be secrets and techniques hidden beneath the tablecloth whereas increasing the desk may serve to create bodily distance between the events. […] Our set up makes use of the tables on a number of ranges – each realistically and symbolically. The interwoven picket construction displays the Lords’ system of energy and their ruthless wrestle for the highest. The a number of makes use of of the tables – be it as a mattress, climbing assist to the throne, grave, hiding place or assembly place for conspiracies beneath the desk – illustrate the flexibility of those objects and their symbolic significance within the piece. All scenes are desk scenes, simply not as you’d anticipate.’
Musgrave’s opera is a prequel to Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and is predicated on Mary’s return to Scotland in 1561 following her eighteen years of exile in France. To start with, we hear a Scottish people track, ‘The Bonnie Earl of Moray’, and all through are fragments from the medieval interval of Scots music, ballads, and French court docket dances, all richly ornamenting Musgrave’s rating. Her fantastically embroidered music reveals that she has her personal language and expression, evincing the plight of Mary within the unruly world of sixteenth-century Scotland.
Act I opens in Cardinal Beaton’s examine, the place the cardinal is loud night breathing on the Scottish throne with the lords and courtiers watching him. James Stewart, the Earl of Moray, argues that he ought to take the throne as a substitute of his sister Mary, nevertheless Beaton tells him, ‘You can’t kill me’, however James argues, ‘I shall rule with the Queen’. After a wrestle, Beaton is murdered and disappears down via the stage, throughout which the choir sing a mediaeval chant accompanied by the solo harp.
Mary arrives as bells ring out and the choir sing ‘Hail the Queen’. She is adopted by her 4 attendants, who emerge via the ground, wearing previous garments as if on a tenting journey they usually play a serious half within the drama. Mary sings a soliloquy accompanied by celebrant trumpets. Within the gloomy backdrop, solely the throne reveals that is Holyrood Palace.
The Ballroom scene at Holyrood is embroidered with French dance music because the lords and courtiers dance in grotesque costumes and masks. Contradicting the lower than full help from the court docket ‘wolves’, Mary sings ‘I shall rule as I please!’ However because the celebrations proceed, behind the scenes, James is plotting, ‘You can’t maintain the peace with music and dancing’ because the ghoulish figures encompass Mary threateningly. Musgrave’s rating fantastically portrays the outrageous brutality of the scene with high-pitched shifting rhythmic syncopations within the woodwind and brass. Within the unfolding motion there are disagreeable assaults made upon Mary and her attendants; the Queen is sexually abused, as are these ladies-in-waiting, and the Lords wearing wretched face masks indicate sexual aggression and make vulgar sexual gestures towards Mary implying her love for each Darnley and Lord Gordon.
Act II takes place 4 years later, Mary has married Darnley, and Darnley’s good friend Riccio is appointed the Queen’s secretary. She is now pregnant and is repelled by her husband. Mary’s soliloquy ‘The three males of my firmament’ is fantastically sung by Nicole Chevalier. The Queen seeks assist of James to convey order to the court docket, while changing into conscious of Beaton’s homicide by James, she decides to rule alone as she sings her magnificent ‘Alone, alone, I stand alone’. James now tells Darnley the kid will not be his however belongs to Riccio who’s killed by Darnley. An innovation on this staging was the entry of the folks within the auditorium as they now stand up in anger and James tells them that Mary deliberate the murders of Beaton and Riccio to realize complete rule. Nevertheless, Mary will get the help of the folks and banishes James from the court docket. There’s a nice climax with the folks singing ‘God save the Queen’.
Act III sees James rebelling towards Mary, and after refusing refuge in Stirling, the Queen stays at Holyrood Palace, the place Mary sings a lullaby to her son and sends for Bothwell asking for sanctuary for herself and her son James (the longer term James the First of England). Darnley has been killed, and Mary and James confront one another. James tells her she should not belief Bothwell, who calls for she undergo him if she needs security for the longer term king. Within the Seduction scene, Bothwell takes her brutally, ‘Now you’re in my energy’, and James and Bothwell combat one another in a scene dramatically accompanied by percussion and brass. James tells her ‘You will need to go!’ but she retorts ‘I’m harmless!’ and the opera closes with a grand climax as she leaves.
The opera incorporates a number of details that are traditionally inaccurate; Cardinal Beaton was already useless in 1561, and Lord Gordon didn’t exist – his character is predicated as a substitute on Lord Huntly, and James Stewart, Earl of Moray, didn’t die till two years later. Of the singers, essentially the most spectacular was the Mary of the American soprano Nicole Chevalier (making her Leipzig debut), adopted by her scheming brother James, who was carried out succinctly by the German baritone Franz Xaver Schlecht, and the excellent Icelandic tenor Sven Hjörleifsson’s Earl Bothwell, and the English tenor Rupert Charlesworth was the right epitome of a lust-filled and grasping Lord Darnley. The 4 Marys, the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, had been additionally excellent of their often-satirical characterisations. Matthias Foremny masterfully directed the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the refrain of Leipzig Opera. Maybe it’s a signal of the occasions we stay in that one has to journey a whole lot of miles to listen to a up to date Scottish composer’s opera. This was a terrific efficiency and hopefully will result in extra of Musgrave’s operas being staged in Germany and maybe sooner or later once more in Scotland.
Gregor Tassie
