MARIA STUARDA

In the second instalment of Donizetti's Tudor trilogy, co-produced by the opera houses of Valencia, Amsterdam and Naples, the Dutch stage director Jetske Mijnssen once more focuses her attention on theatrical action. The fears of Queen Elisabeth I, arising from the dreadful memory of her witnessing the fall of her mother Anne Boleyn as a child, are contrasted with those of her cousin Maria Stuarda, in a claustrophobic climate emphasised by the staging of bare and narrow rooms. Under the precise bel canto baton of maestro Maurizio Benini, the cast that reaped such formidable success in Anna Bolena, is reunited here, this time with the Italian soprano Eleonora Buratto debuting in the role of Maria Stuarda, set against the temperamental Elisabeth I of the Valencian mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafé, together with the tenor Ismael Jordi.