| Mary Queen of Scots | |
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Jenkins: Where to begin, when you have read the Schiller play, when you’ve read Antonia Fraser and Anne Somerset on Elizabeth, John Guy on Mary Stuart and – perhaps the best book of all – Jane Dunn on Elizabeth and Mary? Where do you start, knowing that by age 22, Mary had returned to Scotland while Robert Cecil, Elizabeth the First’s right hand man, plotted her death with ruthless zeal? The contrast between the French court and the Elizabethan court in London ruled over by a woman whom many considered a “bastard queen” and Mary’s place in an unruly Scotland with all the forces clamoring for independence; it’s all so resonant today!
For those who have seen the new movie “The Queen,” you know it’s about a brief time in Elizabeth the Second’s reign when the monarchy tottered for a moment. The last time the British crown had seen such a dangerous time was the abdication crisis of 1936. Prior to that, you have to look all the way back to George III losing the American colonies, the beheading of Charles I in 1649, and then another step back to the mess made by the Tudors. There’s a famous rhyme learned by English school children about King Henry VIII: “Divorced, beheaded and died; divorced, beheaded, survived.” The necessity of a male heir prompted Henry to renounce Catholicism and create a Protestant faith to take its place in England, which left Elizabeth in a most precarious position. This opera isn’t just about poor, poor Mary and her sad demise, it’s also about the way in which Elizabeth I ruled by vacillation, dithering, considering marriage to a foreign prince or Darnley (or whomever) and sparking an enormous range of opinion about her leadership. Finally, in Schiller’s play there’s the famous (yet fictitious) meeting of the two crowned heads, during which Mary hurls the abusive term “bastard” at Elizabeth and seals her fate. This act of regicide, signed by Elizabeth after Mary’s years of imprisonment... TDO: “Regicide.” Now, there’s a term you don’t hear every day. Jenkins: A queen writing the death warrant of another queen just a year or two before England was faced with the terrible invasion force of the Spanish Armada. But, back to the opera: The story of Mary’s demise is told with incredible fluency and delicacy by Donizetti. The great prayer at the end in which the Scottish Court meets for the last time is spectacular! The beheading, on the other hand, was an absolute mess. They brought the best executioner up from the Tower of London and he botched it: The first stroke hit a knot of some sort in the back of Mary’s neck – with a dull thud – and even the second stroke didn’t sever the head. It took a third stroke of the ax to separate the queen’s head from her body. As the executioner lifted Mary Stuart’s head off the floor, the lips were still moving in prayer and the wig came away from the scalp, rolling across the scaffold. As Mary’s body collapsed, out came her lapdog from beneath her skirts where it had accompanied the queen to her death. And, in a final insult, everything was burned to prevent anybody from obtaining relics of a woman believed to be a martyr for the Catholic religion. However, Mary was not exactly a “good girl.” Throughout her entire life, from leaving Scotland at the age of five for the French Court, she presented herself as the one who would be queen. Unfortunately, her husband, whom she married at the age of fifteen in great splendor at Notre Dame Cathedral, was a weakling, giving Mary the opportunity to live of life of lasciviousness and pleasure – very different from Elizabeth’s controlled upbringing. Queen Elizabeth fell in love, more than once, but I believe she went to her grave a virgin. Or so she was perceived by many of her subjects. “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman,” she said, “but I have the heart and stomach of a king!” In a time when women were second-class citizens, Elizabeth ruled alone. 
TDO: Or considered England her spouse.
Jenkins: Right. It’s been a joy to study Tudor history and to watch this wonderful set take shape by Benoit Dugardyn. And I really believe that the chorus of “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco could not have been written, had Verdi not been familiar with these great choruses at the end of Maria Stuarda. TDO: Let’s talk about that for a moment: Historians tend to classify Donizetti as a bridge between musical eras, and I don’t much care for that term... Jenkins: I hate it. TDO: ...because it seems far too dismissive of his originality. Jenkins: As an Englishman brought up to believe that Verdi was “god,” I have to say that Donizetti composed 74 operas and wound up as Music Director in Vienna. It was Donizetti who prepared the performances of Nabucco for Verdi in the 1840’s. Now, this piece, written in 1834, gives us Donizetti at a mature level. In a way, it’s the most “mature” work of any composer The Dallas Opera is presenting this season. I find it truly fascinating, and the simple use of orchestral color tells the story: the dark, minor motifs whenever Robert Cecil sings – all the time, turning the screws on Elizabeth to sign away the life of the doomed Mary, telling her “This woman has to die if you want to preserve your throne and a Protestant England.” Queen Elizabeth is not married, she has no issue, and this destructive force north of the border must go. And, all this time, Elizabeth agonizes over whether she has the power – and the right – to take the life of another anointed queen. TDO: It seems to me, she was putting her crown on the line either way. Jenkins: Who was going to succeed the Virgin Queen? In the end, Mary won over her rival (from the grave) because it was her son James VI of Scotland who succeeded Elizabeth to become James I of England, famous for the “King James” version of the Bible. TDO: Genes will out. Jenkins: Indeed. For me, opening night is the result of eighteen months of research on the Tudors. Perhaps the greatest joy of all was preparing this edition with stage director Stephen Lawless. I flew to this tiny little airport in Campbell Town and then drove up the Scottish coast to his cottage where one sensed the isolation that, even today, is Scotland. In the Elizabethan era, it took four days on a fast horse to travel from London to Edinburgh. It was a different world, with a different language and different customs. Mary was weak but surrounded by strong Scottish clans and a largely Catholic border population that also posed a serious threat to Elizabeth’s sovereign rule. Could they have raised an army and marched south to unseat Elizabeth? The tension and the threat were always there, as was the danger posed by King Philip of Spain. TDO: Was there a moment in your eighteen months of research that altered your approach to this work? A moment that found you “on the road to Damascus?” Jenkins: Once you examine the historical baggage carried by each of these characters and carefully read the fictional account of the meeting between the two queens: Mary, incarcerated for nineteen years in castles throughout Northern England, and an equally dominant figure, Elizabeth, standing her ground as the two hurl abuse at each other...that was the moment when I finally understood why Mary had the power – and the right – to address England’s queen as a royal “bastard.” That truly was a “Damascus” moment. | |
