Maria Stuarda, Royal Opera House - opera review

The fateful meeting of rival queens Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots in Donizetti’s opera Maria Stuarda — as of the Schiller play from which the libretto ultimately derives — forms the centrepiece of the action, even while it stretches historical exactitude. Donizetti rises to Schillerian heights of sublimity and pathos but not in the staging by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier.

Christian Fenouillat’s set economically relocates most scenes to an anonymous space somewhere between a corporate interior and a prison: Westminster/Fotheringay, indoors/outdoors — boundaries are deliberately blurred. A modern-day crowd of protesters is intended to inject a contemporary relevance. And indeed when a human chain is formed by candlelight outside Mary’s condemned cell for the soaring choral finale, it’s briefly effective.

But Leiser and Caurier don’t seem to take their own concept seriously. Elizabeth, in a monstrous wheel farthingale, perches unfeasibly on the back of a sofa and removes her wig in full view of the crowd, while a sharply suited Cecil, urging Mary’s execution, wanders around with an axe (picked up by Elizabeth). Some of the shadows into which characters are cast are so perverse as to suggest a malfunctioning lighting plot (Christophe Forey).

Maria Stuarda is essentially a vehicle for two cracking divas, however, and in Carmen Giannattasio and Joyce DiDonato this production has exactly that. DiDonato in the title role exudes moral fire, terror and nobility of spirit, negotiating the coloratura with aplomb. She has an impressive trill and moulds a golden legato line. Giannattasio is no less commanding and their fictional encounter, complete with Mary’s kamikaze insults, is electrifying. Ismael Jordi is an uningratiating, unsubtle Leicester, but Matthew Rose presents an authoritative Talbot. Bertrand de Billy conducts with urgency and delicacy.

Until July 18 (020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk)