Mary, Queen of Scots, ENO, 15 February 2025

Coliseum

Images: Ellie Kurttz
Queen Mary (Heidi Stober)

Queen Mary – Heidi Stober
James Stewart, Earl of Moray – Alex Otterburn
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley – Rupert Charlesworth
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell – John Findon
David Riccio – Barnaby Rea
Cardinal Beaton – Darren Jeffery
Lord Gordon – Alastair Miles
Earl of Ruthven – Ronald Samm
Earl of Morton – Jolyon Loy
Mary Seton – Jenny Stafford
Mary Beaton – Monica McGhee
Mary Livingston – Felicity Buckland
Mary Fleming – Siān Griffiths

Director, designs – Stewart Laing
Associate costume designs – Mady Berry
Lighting – D.M. Wood

Choreography – Alex McCabe  

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus director: Matthew Quinn)  

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Joana Carneiro (conductor)

Written to the composer’s own libretto based on Amalia Elguera’s unpublished play Moray – direct collaboration having proved difficult – Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots has had, by contemporary operatic standards, rather a happy history since its 1977 Edinburgh premiere. It has reached various stages in the United Kingdom, United States and Germany. Last year, a new production was mounted in Leipzig. Now, in co-production with San Francisco Opera, it receives its premiere at ENO. It may have seemed a bold step for the company in its current, parlous condition, yet it was rewarded with both an artistic success and something approaching a full house. It was a delight to see the composer, approaching 97, in the audience and receiving justly warm and prolonged applause. 

Earl of Bothwell (Barnaby Rea), James Stewart (Alex Otterburn), Mary

People can create, perform, and appreciate successful art regardless of personal circumstances; there nevertheless seems something apt for a Scottish woman who received part of her education in France (studying with Nadia Boulanger) who thereafter spent much of her life, if not in exile then working in another English-speaking country (the USA), to have written an opera on this theme. If it does not fall into the category of experimental opera, seeking to reinvent or reimagine the genre, to expand its theatrical and/or musical boundaries; nor is it seeking to do so, without proving self-consciously archaising. Mary Queen of Scots is rather a highly competent, engaging work which, in its three acts, come across as the equal of many an accomplished work by the likes of Britten or even, in some moods, Henze. In musical dramaturgy, if hardly language, the opera takes its place more in a line from Verdi than Wagner. Musgrave is equally, palpably adept at many of the classic set pieces and expectations of the genre, evoking with similar sureness requirements and shifts in general atmosphere, music for dancing, and crowd scenes set against individual feeling. Turning inwards for an aria, in which certain instrumentation colours a character’s – and our – response, music and drama might be understood as traditionally operatic, without pushing any particular aesthetic as to what anything other than itself should be.

Likewise, a broadly tonal musical language sounds straightforwardly to be what it is, rather than self-consciously reinstating tonality—or anything else. I could sense a mind at work planning its musical structure in tandem with the drama, without bringing that modernistically to the fore. The ENO Orchestra and (a regrettably thinned down) Chorus under conductor Joana Carneiro were surely instrumental to realising this success. One would never have had the sense this was not a repertory work they had been playing for years—save, perhaps for the keen sense of discovery. We felt, even knew, we were in safe hands, though. 

The cast was, of course, similarly crucial to such achievement. Heidi Stober gave a touching, multi-faceted performance in the title role, in no evident sense bound by the expectations such a portrayal must necessarily greet. One felt in her plight the twin demands of life and fate ground tragically by politics low and high. Alex Otterburn’s quicksilver James Stewart proved nicely enigmatic. If there remained a nagging suspicion one should dislike the character more than one did, that stood testament to the artists’ gift for bringing alive both the character and his own necessities. Rupert Charlesworth had one properly despise Darnley in his amoral weakness. I struggled somewhat to gain the measure of the Earl of Bothwell, but that seemed to be more inherent in the drama, perhaps the staging too, than in John Findon’s well-sung performance. Darren Jeffery’s Cardinal Beaton and Barnaby Rea’s Riccio were clearly, vividly presented; not that the two have much in common beyond that. Smaller roles were all well taken, rebuking the idea that one can, let alone should, uproot a company such as ENO and dump it somewhere else; such depth comes from building on a living tradition, not that the Arts Council has idea or interest in such an idea. 

David Riccio (Barnaby Rea), Lord Darnley (Rupert Charlesworth), James Stewart

Stewart Laing’s production was at best a mixed bag, though that may in part have been a matter of limited resources. If it tried to do more with a broadly comparable black-box space than Ruth Knight had for Britten’s Gloriana in 2022, Knight’s caution emerged all the wiser. A marquee was built and taken down with considerable noise: a metaphor, no doubt, yet one that added little. Other than that, we had strangely inappropriate costumes, their lack of social differentiation was puzzling. Warm anoraks were the thing across the board, perhaps because the opera is set in Scotland, although, especially in crowd scenes, we appeared to be closer to the world of The Flying Dutchman. If the idea – and I think it may have been – was to evoke twentieth-century Protestant-Catholic sectarianism, then it might have been more rigorously applied, strange exceptions throwing the whole thing into disarray, unaided by other aspects of the staging. To be fair, though, one could certainly understand why Mary would only have returned to this Scotland with the greatest of reluctance; it was difficult to imagine how what we saw would have been worth a mass, a Lord’s Supper, or anything else. 

Cardinal Beaton (Darren Jeffery)

I could not understand why Alastair Miles’s dour yet honest Lord Gordon wore a dog collar; let alone why, if so, he should be dressed more as Presbyterian minister than Catholic priest. But then his part in the drama more generally seemed strange on any discernible historical terms, not least in his stabbing of James Stewart (as the Earl of Moray is referred to). Conflation of characters, however much it may pain historians, is far from an unusual dramatic device; if we go down this route, we shall be here all day. This nonetheless remained a perplexing choice. Bothwell’s rape of Mary nevertheless registered in duly horrifying fashion. I do not know the work itself well enough – indeed at all, other than from this performance – to be sure whether the nature of the act is originally so clear. I sensed there might be a suggestion of greater ambiguity, though that may be entirely wrong. In any case, there none here; it cast its dark, terrible shadow over all that remained to be shown.

Mavra and Iolanta, Guildhall, 2 November 2016

Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall

Ibn-Hakia (Joseph Padfield), Iolanta (Elizabeth Skinner), and King René (David Ireland)
Images: Clive Barda

Mavra

Parasha – Anna Sideris
Vassili – Dominick Felix
Mother – Jade Moffat
Neighbour – Bianca Andrew

Iolanta

Iolanta – Elizabeth Skinner
King René – David Ireland
Marta – Jade Moffat
Brigitta – Marho Arsane
Laura – Chloë Treharne
Bertrand – Bertie Watson
Alméric – Eduard Mas Bacardit
Ibn-Hakia – Joseph Padfield
Vaudémont – John Findon
Robert – Daniel Shelvey
 

Kelly Robinson (director)

Bridget Kimak (designs)
Declan Randall (lighting)
K. Yoland (video designs)

Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

 

The Guildhall has shown typical enterprise in programming: two very rarely staged one-act operas in an intriguing double-bill. As I never tire of pointing out, much of the best London opera is to be found in our conservatoires. This term, we have already had an outstanding Royal Academy Alcina; later this month, we shall hear La finta giardiniera at the Royal College.

Any mild disappointment here was occasioned only by Stravinsky’s Mavra itself. I do not begrudge, indeed I wholeheartedly welcome, its staging. Although the Philharmonia recently performed it, I was unable to attend, and I have never previously had the opportunity. If there is a weaker work by the composer in his maturity, I am delighted to say that I have forgotten it. (I might dislike Orpheus, but I recognise its craft. Even Jeu de cartes has a good deal more going for it.) Describing it, as a short buffa work at the cusp of his Ballet russes and neo-Classical tendencies, makes it sound more interesting than it is. It does not overstay its welcome, perhaps, being so short, but the motoric elements here really do sound as if the composer is on auto-pilot. At best, one might find a passing correspondence with L’Histoire du soldat, even Petrushka, but it is trivial stuff really, with a trivial story, concerning a pair of lovers who trick the girl’s mother into accepting her hussar into the house as a new domestic servant.

 

Parasha (Anna Sideris) and Vassili (Dominck Felix)

Here, it was given, as the composer preferred, in the vernacular. Vocal performances were all spirited, well attuned to the trickiness – here, somewhat pointless trickiness, I tend to think – of Stravinsky’s writing. Anna Sideris and Dominick Felix proved agile of voice and on their feet. Jade Moffat and Bianca Andrew offered fine ‘character’ support as Mother and Neighbour. Solo and ensemble demands were navigated readily, in lively combination to the considerable amount of stage action required of them by Kelly Robinson’s updated (1960s?), production. Bridget Kimak’s colourful designs engaged the eye, and if there was not a great deal to the staging beyond what one saw, it is not clear that there could have been. There were a few occasions on which orchestral rhythms and ensembles might have been tighter still, but under Dominic Wheeler, the uneasy marriage of clockwork and Russian colour in its last, equivocal hurrah generally came across well. I shall leave the final word with Stravinsky, writing to his publisher in 1969, imploring him to publish the work: ‘Of course the music is not and will never be a success and there may be no demand or justification for printing it; and if I say that worse music than Mavra is performed you may say that better music is also not performed. Still, I would like to see the work in print.’

Neighbour (Bianca Andrew) and Mother (Jade Moffat)

 

Iolanta, by contrast, has great music indeed, fully worthy, at its best, of the composer of Eugene Onegin. I noticed far less the run-of-the-mill quality of some exchanges than I had in such exalted surroundings as the Paris Opéra earlier this year, which is surely tribute to impressive performances indeed. There, in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s searching staging – somewhat slow-burn in Iolanta itself, but cleverly paving the way – the opera had been paired with The Nutcracker, as indeed had been the case at the latter’s premiere in 1892. In a programme note, Robinson noted that both plots are – I should, more cautiously say, might be considered – ‘variants of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale’. I wish, then, that the two stagings were more obviously connected, drawing out connections rather than leaving it at that. That said, there was much to admire in Iolanta in itself, updated to a modern hospital ward, the princess awaiting her awakening under the watchful – and not-so-watchful – eyes of her nurses and some impressive-looking medical equipment. As in the opera itself, it is not entirely clear to what extent, if any, the Moorish doctor, Ibn-Hakia, plies anything other than the psychological tools of his trade, although an operation certainly takes place here at the right time. Video projections and lighting work powerfully later on, both to illustrate, simply yet unforgettably, the blinding first light and the all-important presence of the eye. Iolanta’s? God’s? We seem free to choose.



Vaudémont (John Findon)

 

Most importantly, space is permitted for an excellent cast to work Tchaikovsky’s wonders. The central pair of lovers both proved impressive indeed. Elizabeth Skinner faltered on one occasion, yet otherwise proved moving and generous of spirit. Her portrayal of the princess’s blindness was unerring; no one could have failed to be on her side. John Findon, as Vaudémont, was, quite simply, outstanding. His ardent tenor was just the thing, rising thrillingly above the orchestra – remember how young these singers are! – and yet capable of considerable subtlety. Their Russian, like that of the rest of the cast, seemed to me excellent too: I certainly managed to follow its meaning (without, alas, any real knowledge of the language) when the surtitles failed. David Ireland’s King René was another generous, keenly observed portrayal; there was no doubting his love for his daughter and consequently his plight. All of the singers acted well as a company, listening to each other and responding in kind. Eduard Mas Bacardit, Bertie Watson, and Daniel Shelvey offered, to my ear, particularly fine performances, but there was not a weak link in the cast.

Robert (Daniel Shelvey)

I occasionally wondered whether the orchestra might be too small, but it rose to the occasion at the great climaxes, showing instead that Wheeler, ever attentive to the score’s ebb and flow, had been keeping it down, emphasising, perfectly reasonably, chamber tendencies, or at least possibilities, within.

Ariane and Alexandre bis, Guildhall, 31 May 2016

Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Ariane

Le Veilleur (M. Yvon Villeneuve) – John Findon

L’Homme aux cheveux blancs (M. Giuseppe di Bergamo) – Milan Siljanov
1^er garçon (M. Gerard Fennial) – Robin Horgan
2^ème garçon (M. Gauthier Cardin) – Bertie Watson
3^ème garçon (M. Gregoire Lissard) – James Liu
4^ème garçon (M. Olivier Moreau) – Laurence Williams
5^ème garçon (M. Jean-Baptiste Daude) – Jack Lawrence-Jones
Thésée (M. Dmitri Romanov) – Josep-Ramon Olivé
Ariane (Mme Maria Callas) – Nicola Said
Bouroun (M. Pierre LeClerc) – Dominick Felix
Le Minotaure (M. Giuseppe di Bergamo) – Milan Siljanov 

Alexandre bis

Philomène – Bianca Andrew

Le portrait – Milan Siljanov
Alexandre – Josep-Ramon Olivé
Armande – Elizabeth Karani
Oscar – John Findon
Dancing Devils – Robin Horgan, Jack Lawrence-Jones, Bernie Watson, Laurence Williams

Rodula Gaitanou (director)

Simon Carder (set designs, lighting)
Cordelia Chisholm (costumes)
Victoria Newlyn (choreography)

Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Timothy Redmond (conductor)
 

I keep trying with Martinů, but I am yet to ‘get’ his music. Perhaps there is too much of it; that seems to be a common claim amongst his apologists. I have maybe not heard the right pieces. As it stands, though, I have yet to detect an original voice; more concerningly, I have yet to hear anything that has had me want to listen to it again. This enterprising operatic double-bill at the Guildhall did not, alas, buck that trend, splendid stagings and performances notwithstanding.

 

First came the composer’s penultimate opera, Ariane, a vaguely neo-Baroque re-telling of the legend of Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur. Not everything can be Birtwistle, I suppose, but this seems a more or less arbitrary collection of passages in differing styles, culminating in an all-too-extended lament that had one longing for the real thing, be it Monteverdi, Cavalli, Purcell, anyone. Given the anonymity of the work, director Rodula Gaitanou’s solution seemed to me inventive, indeed more interesting than the original material. Drawing upon the composer’s attested love for the artistry of Maria Callas during his work on the score, she offers a metatheatrical treatment, the excellent designs (Simon Carder and Cordelia Chisholm) drawing upon photographs, particularly by Robert Doisneau and Sabine Weiss, of Callas recording Carmen at the Salle Wagrame in 1964, six years after Martinů completed composition. It looks wonderful and the young, spirited cast responded eagerly to Ariane as Callas, the additional action – amatory and other rivalry, the business of recording and rehearsal, etc. – doubtless drawing upon their own experience as well as setting them up well for future careers, in which metatheatrical concerns are likely to loom large. Nicola Said’s performance in the title role took a little while to warm up, but she soon made it her own; if only, alas, I could have responded better to Martinů’s writing, which, whilst not so bad as Donizetti, did not seem especially concerned to free itself from such association. Josep-Ramon Olivé was a dashing Thésée, both on stage and vocally. The five boys (named above) enjoyed their intrigues. Milan Siljanov brought a touch of welcome gravity to the role of the Minotaur, whilst Jon Findon busied himself nicely as the Watchman.

Alexandre bis, I am afraid to say, proved tedious. Again, that was no fault of the performers. Here, as in Ariane, the orchestra proved remarkably adept, under Timothy Redmond’s baton, at tracing and communicating the changing moods of the score, such as they were. Attempts at musical surrealism were rarely successful; this proves no exception. Essentially, it is a tale of would-be infidelity, which never happens, although we learn from a dream what might have happened. Von heute auf morgen it certainly is not, let alone Così fan tutte (for those very few, that is, who understand what that work is actually about). If you like the world of Feydeau farce, you might find something in this, I suppose, but it is slight even by those undemanding standards, and fails to attain the lightness of, say, Offenbach. The Magritte-like designs are once again splendid, and there could be no faulting the enthusiastic response of the cast (even if French dialogue was despatched rather too slowly). Siljanov offered a nice turn as a talking portrait. Olivé proved lively and as winning as the work would allow in his new role. If there were any true echo at all of Così, and this is stretching it, it would be in the servant’s role of Philomène; Bianca Andrew had one wonder what she might have made of Despina, in another excellent performance. Elizabeth Karani’s bored lady of leisure proved equally convincing, insofar as it could. Martinů eluded me once again.

 

The Cunning Peasant, Guildhall School, 5 November 2014

Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Bĕtuška (Bathsheba) – Laura Ruhi-Vidal

Jeník (Joseph) – Lawrence Thackeray

Martin (Gabriel) – David Shipley

Václav (Reuben) – Robin Bailey

Veruna (Victoria) – Emma Kerr

Prince (Duke) – Martin Hässler

Princess (Duchess) – Alison Langer

Jean (John) – John Findon

Berta (Fanny) – Anna Gillingham

Stephen Medcalf (director)

Francis O’Connor (set designs)

John Bishop (lighting)

Sarah Fahie (choreography)

Dancers from the Central School of Ballet

Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School

Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

What an enjoyable opportunity to encounter Dvořák’s sixth opera, Šelma Sedlák¸or The Cunning Peasant! It is no Rusalka, let alone a match for Janáček, but, especially during the second act, there are both good music and fun to be had. (Let us quickly pass over the truly dreadful overture; whatever was the composer thinking?) The librettist, Josef Otakar Veselý, perhaps does Dvořák few favours; as Jan Smaczny noted in his helpful programme note, ‘despite an avowed aim to transform the fate of Czech literature by producing drama which “did not resemble something written in the age of Shakespeare”,’ this twenty-three-year-old medical student ‘had little success with his work for the stage’. That said, he seems to have produced something, which, if anything but transformative, would have appealed to popular, national tastes, with its crowd peasant scenes and opportunity for dance. Parallels with The Marriage of Figaro have been drawn, but they are difficult to discern beyond the stock devices of an aristocrat who would seduce a serving girl and a plot to expose him. As Smaczny again observes, ‘the real focus of the plot is the fate of the couple, Jeník and Bĕtuska, and their love; the fact that this [their love] is the object of parental disapproval places the plot more in the realm of The Bartered Bride and The Kiss, than Figaro.’ There is certainly none of the characterisation that forms Mozart’s – and Da Ponte’s – eternal masterpiece.

 

Director Stephen Medcalf has, seemingly in part as a result of the opera’s dramatic weakeness, decided to move the action to Hardy’s Wessex, even going so far as to rename the characters. Jeník and Bĕtuska become Joseph and Bathsheba, and so on. No particular harm is done, though I am not quite sure that the effort was necessary. Perhaps it just made a performance in English translation easier, though Medcalf also alludes to ‘an attempt to avoid the potential hazard of generalised Slavic folksiness’. The only case in which I found the shift problematical – and, unless I have misunderstood, entirely unnecessarily so – was the transformation of Vacláv, the farmer’s son to whom Martin/Gabriel would have his daughter wed, into a Jewish merchant, Reuben. Having a Jewish character ‘humourously’ rejected by the girl, mocked by the crowd, and consoling himself with his money left a bitter taste in the mouth and struck me as the sort of thing that might have been better altered rather than introduced in an adaptation. Otherwise, Medcalf presents the action, potentially complicated plotting included, clearly, with attractive period designs and – a particular boon, this – highly effective changes of lighting from John Bishop.

 

Dominic Wheeler led the largely impressive orchestra with flair and tenderness. It was striking how voluptuous a sound the strings (10.8.6.6.3) could make during the ‘romantic’ sections of the second act. And if the opening could not be turned into anything especially interesting, the fault for that should lie with composer and librettist, certainly not with the performers. As the music became more interesting – could not some of the material for the scene around the Maypole have been reused for a better Overture? – so did the performance sparkle all the more. Dancers (Thomas Badrock, Jessica Lee, Claire Rutland, and Rahien Testa) from the Central School of Ballet made a fine mark here too.

 

Vocally, there was much to admire too, starting with a highly creditable choral contribution. Unfortunately, the central couple proved less impressive than the supporting cast, Lawrence Thackeray’s Joseph often highly strained and Laura Ruhi-Vidal struggling with her high notes in particular. However, Martin Hässler’s Prince/Duke made an excellent impression, suggesting a baritone of considerable music subtlety, nicely complimented by Alison Langer’s attractively-voiced Duchess. John Findon, a late substitution in the role of John, displayed excellent comedic and musical gifts alike, with Emma Kerr more than his dramatic match as Gabriel’s housekeeper, Victoria. Anna Gillingham, David Shipley, and Robin Bailey rounded off a spirited young cast, from many of whom I suspect we shall hear more.