In the madness of royal succession, a baby in a buggy is proclaimed king, his mother robbed of the crown and banished. Mary, Queen of Scots (1977), a three-act opera by Thea Musgrave, focuses on the seven years leading up to that moment of exile. History is rewritten in the telling, but the atrocity of Mary’s story burns through. Sexual politics, shattered trust and religious turbulence eddy and seethe, all to a huge orchestral score and the actions of four earls, two lords, a cardinal and the rabble-rousing people of Scotland, as well as the queen’s household of women.
In a move as plucky as it was, in some ways, baffling, English National Opera presented Mary, Queen of Scots in a modest semi-staging by director-designer Stewart Laing (woolly hats, anoraks, railings and a dismal, half-built frame marquee). Cast, chorus and orchestra, under the baton of Joana Carneiro, had mastered Musgrave’s complex score and wordy text (the composer’s own) to the highest standard. The regret was that this exhaustive effort, for whatever reasons of cost or nerve, resulted in only two performances – both sold out.
