Maria Stuarda, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Jan. 19 2013

Donizetti is known for, among other things, the “three queens” trilogy: Anna Bolena (1830), Maria Stuarda (1835), and Roberto Devereux (1837). The Met has only recently given its first performances of Anna Bolena, in late 2011 and early 2012. This is their first production of Maria Stuarda. Roberto Devereux remains unperformed—should we expect to see it in the near future?

The sets were faithful to the opera, in a somewhat modern idiom, but with no directorial excesses. All of the sets used a wooden floor, raised a couple of feet above stage level, divided into large squares with the planks running north-south, east-west, and at a diagonal. The back of Act 1 Scene 1 was a nod to the Globe Theater, with a wall of wood at the back, painted red. In the center was an opening through which we could see a painting of brightly colored flags and pennants. Up high was complex carpentry to support the roof, if there had been a roof. In the center of the stage was a large, very sturdy wooden platform on which jugglers and acrobats could perform. In Scene 2 the action moved out of doors into the forest, which was suggested by about a dozen poles with short, bare branches sticking out of them. The back wall was a black-and-white abstract background that looked sort of like a sky by JMW Turner.

For Act 2 Scene 1 we were were back inside the castle, with the large wooden platform of Act 1 Scene 1 serving as a desk; the back wall was a painting of a large circle with crosshairs, with a lion (with a dog’s nose!) rampant to the left and a gryphon rampant to the right. In Scene 2 we were in Mary’s cell, with what looked like a very large blackboard at the rear; copies of her various letters were chalked onto the blackboard, different letters at different angles. In Scene 3 the back wall parted to reveal ... bleachers! Sorry, I’m still thinking of the bleachers in San Francisco Opera’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi ... these were really wooden steps, open to the rear, that Mary climbed to approach the executioner. No one actually dies during the course of this opera, but the title character doesn’t last very long after the curtain falls.

Our cast:

Maria Stuarda (Mary Queen of Scots): Joyce DiDonato

Elisabetta (Queen Elizabeth I): Elza van den Heever

Roberto (Robert Dudley): Matthew Polenzani

Giorgio (George Talbot): Matthew Rose

Guglielmo (William Cecil): Joshua Hopkins

Anna (Jane Kennedy): Maria Zifchak

Conductor: Maurizio Benini

Production: David McVicar

Designer: John Macfarlane

Joyce DiDinato showed us why she is one of the world’s leading mezzos. Although not as impressive as she was in the aforementioned  I Capuleti e i Montecchi, she was nevertheless the star of this show. Elza van den Heever sang well enough, but I’m not yet a fan. The men seemed to be doing their jobs and not much more. The music was pleasant enough, but Lucia di Lammermoor has nothing to worry about. Somewhere between a beta and a gamma.