An astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre: Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at Salzburg Festival, directed by Ulrich Rasche with Lisette Oropesa & Kate Lindsey

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Bekhzod Davronov, Thomas Lehmann, Kate Lindsey - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda; Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey, Bekhzod Davronov, director: Ulrich Rasche, Vienna Philharmonic, conductor: Antonello Manacorda; Salzburg Festival at the Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg
Reviewed 16 August 2025

Donizetti's bel canto opera as an abstract combination of music and movement, with intensely committed and commanding performances from the two protagonists

Donizetti's Maria Stuarda without any monarchical iconography or 17th century political background? Why not? After all, when Joan Sutherland sang the role at Covent Garden with Huguette Tourangeau as Elisabetta (in 1977, using English National Opera's classic John Copley production) reviewers commented that it was less about Mary, Queen of Scots and more about two operatic divas facing off.

For theatre director Ulrich Rasche, his production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Salzburg Festival was only his third music theatre staging and his first bel canto opera. The result was an astonishing piece of kinetic musical theatre

I caught the performance of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda on 16 August 2025 at the Grosses Festspielhaus as part of the Salzburg Festival. Ulrich Rasche directed and designed the sets with costumes by Sara Schwartz, video by Florian Hetz, lighting by Marco Giusti and choreography by Paul Blackman. Kate Lindsey was Elisabetta and Lisette Oropesa was Maria, with Bekhzod Davronov as Leicester, Aleksei Kulagin as Talbot, Thomas Lehman as Cecil and Nino Gotoshia as Anna. Antonella Manacorda conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic, with the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and dancers from SEAD — Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda final scene - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

The chorus remained unseen throughout the opera and the stage was occupied by dancers from SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance), the choreography was by Paul Blackman but typically Ulrich Rasche works with movement himself in his productions. His set was a group of three discs, one suspended above and the other two moving across the stage whilst rotating.

For Act One, the discs were in action throughout; even when 'stationary' the performers were moving, walking across the moving stage. Beyond this, expressive movement was part of the singers' dramatic whole. When we first saw Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta her body language told of anguish and anxiety. Each of the two protagonists kept to her own disc and colour iconography, black for Elisabetta, white for Maria.

The result was purely abstract, a piece of kinetic theatre where movement expressed the personal drama. However, given Donizetti's tendency to bouncy accompaniments and the choreography's reliance on rhythmic movement to the music, there were moments that rather came over as bad Gilbert & Sullivan. After all, Donizetti is one of Sullivan's models.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Bekhzod Davronov - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

The iconography was intriguing, to say the least. When we first saw her, Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta looked and moved remarkably like Martha Graham as Medea in her Cave of the Heart! Elisabetta's courtiers were all in black, though Sara Schwartz's costumes for the dancers seemed to veer towards rather sexy sheer black for the men's tops - all but one of the dancers was male. In the second act, Maria's supporters were wearing just white loincloths which gave their interactions with Lisette Oropesa's Maria a somewhat sexual image, especially as at one point the dancers' writhing mass resembled an iconic 1970s album cover.

This approach left little scope for developing the characters of Leicester (Bekhzod Davronov), Talbot (Aleksei Kulagin) and Cecil (Thomas Lehman). Rasche seemed interested in them only inasmuch as they interacted with the two protagonists. The focus was on Maria and Elisabetta.

Casting for these two roles has remained fluid thanks to the opera's chequered history. Donizetti wrote it for Naples for two sopranos (a form in which it is rarely performed nowadays) but it only ever reached the dress rehearsal before censors got involved. Interest from Maria Malibran meant the opera got a fresh start in Milan with Donizetti adjusting the role of Maria to suit the lower tessitura of Malibran's voice. Censorship reared its head again and the opera never achieved enough definitive performances to establish a casting norm.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Nino Gotoshia, Lisette Oropesa - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Twentieth century revivals (hampered by the fact that the autograph only reappeared in the 1980s with a critical edition in 1989) tended to assign one of the roles to a mezzo-soprano so famously Janet Baker sang Maria at English National Opera with a pair of dramatic sopranos (Pauline Tinsley, then Rosalind Plowright) as Elisabetta. Joan Sutherland was a soprano Maria with Huguette Tourangeau as a mezzo-soprano Elisabetta. Personally, in Salzburg's casting I missed the dramatic bite that the right soprano voice can bring to Elisabetta, for all Kate Lindsey's dramatic perspicacity.

One problem was that the wide expanses of the Grosses Festspielhaus stage are not idea for Donizetti. With the Vienna Philharmonic in the rather shallow pit both protagonists sometimes failed to adequately project in the middle register. Of course, that Ulrich Rasche's production placed his singers unhelpfully upstage did not help either.

But there was much to enjoy and Rasche's approach, particularly in the final scene, was astonishing and I can only commend the way the soloists incorporated his movement and physicality into their performances. This was very much a festival production, few opera houses could afford the time needed to bring this off.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Nino Gotoshia, Bekhzod Davronov, Aleksei Kulagin, Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Lisette Oropesa made an engagingly plangent Maria, delightful in her enjoyment of the open spaces in her first scene yet proud and authoritarian in the remainder of the act. Her interaction with Kate Lindsey's Elisabetta was masterly and we could see the proud haughtiness emerging from behind the mask.

Her scene with Aleksei Kulagin's sympathetic Talbot in Act Two was a masterpiece of double speak. Oropesa managed to make Maria's confession touching and moving so that when she said she went to the scaffold innocent, we believe her. The prayer was everything it needed to be and the closing scene, with the descending third disc and writhing, scantily clad young men, was simply astonishing.

Ulrich Rasche's vision lexicon for Elisabetta was heavily freighted towards regret and anxiety, yet Donizetti's music for the character requires a sort of whip-lash approach. Kate Lindsey managed both, making her vocal responses seem like a lashing out at times. Her voice lacked the bite that the role needed but she compensated with sheer intelligence. She made a wonderfully contrasting opposite to Lisette Oropesa and the two were finely matched.

Rasche's approach meant that we sometimes saw the other woman when the music focused elsewhere, so that Elisabetta was never far from Maria and vice versa. A female dancer doubled as both, thus giving a constant presence throughout the movement sections.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Thomas Lehman, Kate Lindsey - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

Bekhzod Davronov made an admirable Leicester, a role whose only function seems to be in love with Maria and to annoy Elisabetta. Davronov did this well, managing to suggest a certain uprightness of attitude though occasionally relapsing into stiffness. He had a nicely heroic tang to his tone but was fluid and flexible enough with the Donizettian line. All in all, an engaging performance and I would love to see him in a more rewarding bel canto role.

Aleksei Kulagin as Talbot only really came into his own in the great Act Two scene with Lisette Oropesa's Maria when she confessed all. Whilst it was Oropesa's touching performance that drew our attention, Kulagin certainly made the conflicted figure of Talbot suitably sympathetic. Thomas Lehman provided firm support as Cecil, managing to make a little more of the role than its few gruff moments. Nino Gotoshia, one of the participants in the festival's Young Singers Project, was a sympathetic Anna (a thankless role, frankly).

I am not sure whether it was a strange acoustical effect or sheer dilatoriness but the Vienna State Opera Chorus' performance sometimes seemed behind the beat. And besides, there were moments such as during the Act Two prayer when we missed their physical presence on stage interacting with the protagonists.

In the pit, Antonello Manacorda, the Vienna Philharmonic and the players from their Summer Academy were alert and exciting from the word go. Manacorda brought out the music's sense of drama but allowed the lyric moments to breathe. This was a performance attuned to Donizetti's score as real music, not just as accompaniment for the singers.

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Salzburg Festival (Photo: SF/Monika Rittershaus)

This was one of those performances that demanded that you take it on its own terms. Ulrich Rasche was never going to create anything like a traditional production and his abstract, kinetic music theatre approach, though there were problems, ultimately did indeed create a profoundly striking visual interpretation.

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