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Organization

Singer

Soprano

Elza van den Heever

Elizabeth

Joyce DiDonato

Mary Stuart

Tenor

Matthew Polenzani

Robert, Earl of Leicester

Salvatore Cordella

Bass

Joshua Hopkins

Lord William Cecil

Matthew Rose

George Talbot

Mezzo-soprano

Maria Zifchak

Anna Kennedy

Conductor

Maurizio Benini

Stage director

David McVicar

Set designer

John Macfarlane

Costume designer

Lighting designer

Jennifer Tipton

Choreographer

Leah Hausman

The Metropolitan Opera

Italian

Maria Stuarda -  (Mary Stuart)

New York City

United States

Metropolitan Opera House

Joyce DiDonato gives a sensational performance as Mary, Queen of Scots, in Donizetti’s bel canto drama, opposite Elza van den Heever as Queen Elizabeth. This Live in HD presentation of David McVicar’s acclaimed 2012 production also stars Matthew Polenzani as Leicester, the man caught between the rival queens. Maurizio Benini conducts.

Maria Stuarda

Public

English

German

Spanish

Approved

Maria Stuarda Donizetti

Late 16th century. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, has been forced to abdicate her throne and flee her kingdom after the rebellion of her Scottish nobles. A Catholic, crowned at the age of nine months, she was betrothed to the Dauphin of France and raised from childhood at the French court. At 18, she returned to her native land, following the sudden death of her husband Francis II, having reigned as Queen of France for little more than a year. Unable to exert control over her Protestant nobility and beset by insurrections, plots, and murders, she has sought asylum in England from her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. But her presence in Protestant England is untenable to Elizabeth and her advisors. As a descendant of the Tudor line, the English Catholics see Mary as the rightful heir to Henry VIII’s crown (Elizabeth having been declared illegitimate following the execution for adultery of her mother, Anne Boleyn). An English inquiry into the scandalous murder of Mary’s dissolute second husband, Henry, Lord Darnley, has proved inconclusive as to her complicity in the crime but has served as a pretext to keep the former Queen of Scotland imprisoned for many years.

Mary Stuart by Donizetti, From (2012/2013), Directed by David McVicar,, Conductor Maurizio Benini, Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, United States

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