MARIA STUARDA • SALZBURG FESTSPIELE 2025
★★★★★☆
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
REVIEW MARIA STUARDA: TOP SOPRANOS IN AN ABSTRACT SALZBURG CATFIGHT
Top sopranos in a wildly spectacular, abstract catfight take the stage at the Großes Festspielhaus when Donizetti’s Tudor drama about power and love rolls across the stage in a powerful, surreal and technically superior production that leaves all your expectations of royal English period drama in the dust.
Director Ulrich Rasche has condensed the story of Maria Stuarda into an ice-cold, kinetic universe in which a relentless psychology unfolds between the main characters and two teams of dancers in a distinctive geometric set-up in constant motion.
The stage consists of two gigantic, circular platforms in constant rotation around themselves and each other, like tectonic plates doomed to collide.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
A kind of visual metaphor for the polished floors of power, on which Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stewart, each in their own tableau, fight for power, love and honour together with their court and respective wingmen.
A third platform floats around the stage, sometimes as a link between the first two, sometimes as a screen for semi-erotic video close-ups of forbidden dreams of love and passionate lovemaking. Because, of course, there is a love story involved, which makes everything much worse.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
The performance is Belcanto quality at its finest, with American soprano Lisette Oropesa giving a particularly impressive performance in the title role.
Oropesa demonstrates phenomenal technique, supple vocal power and great dramatic empathy on her way to the doom we know she will meet despite the Earl of Leicester’s heartfelt attempts to save the Scottish queen from the axe.
We witness a top-class performance that unfolds elegantly in a deeply original gesamtkunstwerk. Never mind that some have criticised Rasche’s take for being a tad too far-fetched. Creative exaggeration is now more the rule than the exception in modern productions of opera classics.
And let’s be honest: Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda is gathering dust and could do with an overhaul.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
The thoroughly likeable Oropesa is one of the biggest names of our time, and I can promise you that she lives up to expectations in this outstanding performance. As a vegan and marathon runner, she emphatically debunks the myth that you need to carry a few extra pounds to sing opera.
What a gift it is to be able to experience top stars live in action at the peak of their performance, whether they are footballers, Michelin chefs or opera singers.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
As Elizabeth, Kate Lindsey is a revelation in her portrayal of the English queen, who is controlled from behind the scenes by a machinery of civil servants and powerful interests. It is the vivid inertia of this “machine” that is said to have inspired the spectacular stage design. Elizabeth really has no choice but to obey her supporters and have Mary beheaded.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
A dazzling lighting design frames the orchestra under Antonello Manacorda, which flows with all the beautiful legato phrasing that made the bel canto genre popular throughout the mid-19th century, culminating in works such as Norma, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy.
GOT TO SEE THIS gives five stars to an unconditionally first-class opera experience with visual edge and a sublime cast of singers.
