Stage

Maria Stuarda: Erraught and Devin rise to the occasion in INO’s new production

Review: In an opera full of duets the leads are ideally partnered by the excellent voices of the supporting cast

Maria Stuarda: Anna Devin, as Queen Elizabeth I, with the Irish National Opera chorus. Photograph: Pat Redmond

Michael Dungan
Tue Jun 7 2022 - 12:25

Maria Stuarda

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
★★★★

“You are a prostitute, impure and obscene.”

One royal (woman) saying it, in public, to another—okay to print that? Right after the weekend’s jubilee celebrations for Queen Elizabeth? Which women? Meghan and Kate? It must be viral! Why can’t I find it?

Because, unfortunately, the royals involved aren’t the current Queen Elizabeth but the previous one, and her cousin Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. And because the exchange never happened. In fact, the two women never actually met.

Except fictitiously on stage in Maria Stuarda, Donizetti’s 1835 opera, loosely based on events in 1587 and which here receives its full Irish premiere in Irish National Opera’s (INO) production. The royal face-off comes as the finale to the first half, unusually early for an opera’s narrative climax, and the second half is all aftermath. But it doesn’t matter: it’s Donizetti so it’s opera in bel-canto style where action is subordinate to the platform it provides for beautiful songs and beautiful singing.

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Therefore casting is the most important thing for INO to get right. They do, simultaneously showcasing two international Irish stars. The mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught soars in the title role, whose vocal demands surpass even those for Elisabetta, sung by the soprano Anna Devin, who also conveys the role’s greater psychological complexity with sparky understatement. Both women make deceptively light work of Donizetti’s challenging lines, so that what keeps hitting you is beauty rather than technique. Erraught nails the opera’s sweetest highlights, Maria’s confession to Talbot and her prayer before execution.

In an opera full of duets the leads are ideally partnered by the excellent voices of the supporting cast: the tenor Arthur Espiritu as Leicester, caught between the two queens; the bass Callum Thorpe as Talbot and the mezzo Gemma Ní Bhrian as Anna Kennedy, confidants and supporters of Maria; and the baritone Giorgio Caoduro as Cecil, out to get her.

In bel canto, the second most important thing is for the production not to get in the way, and it doesn’t. Director Tom Creed’s conception is abstract and contemporary, opening with Dyson-armed attendants vacuuming the expansive, blood-red acrylic floor of the throne room in advance of the arrival of a large television crew. Elisabetta makes her entrance in a Union Jack outfit. Here and there designer Katie Davenport inserts a delectably curious costume or prop, but it’s gentle and affectionate, no republican lampooning, and never upstaging the voices. Nor do the INO orchestra and chorus, who provide warm, balanced support under the conductor Fergus Sheil.

Maria Stuarda continues in Dublin today, Thursday and Saturday, then tours to Cork, Wexford and Limerick until June 22nd

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