Met Opera: Maria Stuarda

This article was originally published on January 16, 2013

Yesterday evening's performance of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda was one of the most enjoyable I've seen at the Met this season. It's hard to believe that this masterpiece only became part of the standard repertoire during the bel canto revival of the 1950's and that the composer's original two act score was only discovered and restored in 1989. The current production marks the opera's premiere at the Met.

First, director David McVicar deserves credit for resisting the Met's dubious inclination to update opera scenarios to the present day. It must be apparent by now that this search for "relevance" is becoming increasingly tired and, in some instances, grotesque. This piece, in particular, makes much more sense as the period costume drama shown in the current production. The sets and costumes designed by John Macfarlane are uniformly elegant.

The libretto by law student Giuseppe Bardari, based on the play by Friedrich Schiller, is filled with drama. The climactic scene, of course, is the confrontation between Elizabeth and Mary at the end of Act I. It is here that Mary hurls her insults at Elizabeth: "Obscene unworthy whore... Vile bastard, by your foot!" There is the famous story of the two divas who became so involved in their roles during a dress rehearsal for the original production that, according to a lurid 1834 account:

"... Elizabeth pounced on her rival, pulling her by the hair, slapping her, biting her, punching her in face, and nearly breaking her legs in a flurry of kicks... Elizabeth was the stronger, and mademoiselle Del Serre [sic] fell stunned, almost unconscious. She was carried to her bed..."

The great problem with putting on bel canto operas today is the absence of such great singers as Callas, Sutherland and Sills. But both Elza van den Heever (as Elizabeth in her Met debut) and Joyce DiDonato (as Mary) rose to the challenge. In particular, in the opera's moving final scene, DiDonato did full justice to Donizetti's music in one gorgeous aria after another and was well assisted by Maurizio Benini's conducting.