DONIZETTI

MARY STUART

From Act I, one might conclude that the opera should be entitled “Eliza-beth Tudor.” At the least, it suggests that we are dealing with not one but two formidable women, and in introducing us first to Elizabeth, it prepares the way for the inevitable clash between them. The scene is Whitehall, palace of Queen Elizabeth, a day in which two important decisions are pending. The first con-cerns a marriage proposal from the King of France which could resolve a long-standing national obsession. The second pertains to the fate of Mary Stuart, presently a political prisoner.

The two issues are more closely related than might appear. The outcome of each depends very much upon the behavior of Robert, Earl of Leicester. On the issue of marriage, it would be difficult to keep our audience in suspense. Yet this is precisely what Elizabeth is trying to do to Robert, hoping thereby to enkindle a spark of passion that heretofore has been so painfully lacking.

In truth, she is loath to accept the offer of the King of France, despite the obvious advantages of uniting the two great neighboring powers, as long as she can cling to the hope of greater personal fulfillment in the arms of Robert:

How fair is the hand he offers me,

Lofty the regal destiny.

Were pride or prudence my sole concern,

Right well I would know the way to turn.

Yet still do I waver and seek delay;

Too dear the price my heart would pay.

Within my heart there burns a flame,

A need unsatisfied by fame,

A star now yielding unto dawn,

For sweet is the hope that draws me on,

I wait for one alone,

Far more dear than crown or throne.

She is reluctant as well to pursue the issue of Mary Stuart to the drastic conclusion that Lord Cecil, her chief adviser, urges upon her, despite the very real political threat that Mary poses. Catholic authority has not recognized or accepted the divorce of Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, nor consequently the validity of his marriage to her mother Anne Boleyn, nor consequently her own legitimacy and her claim to the throne. Mary Stuart, a devout Catholic, has powerful supporters that consider hers to be the stronger claim, indeed the only valid claim, a belief fervently held by Mary herself.

But Elizabeth’s fear and hostility towards Mary go deeper. She has long nourished a secret, begrudging envy of Mary for her charm and beauty, and she now has reason to suspect that Mary is her rival, not only for the crown, but for the heart of the man she loves. For Elizabeth, Mary’s ascendency in love outweighs the triumphs of her own driven career. The personal emptiness that breeds frustration, despair and jealousy leads eventually to tyranny:

Her silent features invade my sleep;

I wake and find no freedom.

Am I to wring my hands and weep

Because she craves my kingdom? . . .

She was born of summer, to flower

In the sunlight of beauty and laughter.

I, a slave to pride and power,

With the rival queen may now be reconciled.

Should I find her hand extended

To the man whose heart I would claim,

If through her charms I’ve lost a lover,

She shall rue the pangs I suffer,

Hope of peace and pardon ended,

I’ll reduce them both to shame.

The inner conflict bursts open when Robert, Earl of Leicester, comes to plead on Mary’s behalf, a plea whose every word is gall to Elizabeth. He dis-creetly claims to be stirred by pity alone, not by love. But when he drops dis-cretion and rhapsodizes about her beauty, Elizabeth has reason to wonder:

ROBERT:

Fair as the pearl beyond a price

Drawn from the wind-blown water;

Beauty conceived in paradise,

Venus would claim her daughter.

Lovely in grief her teardrops are,

And lovely her smile of cheer.

Radiant light! The northern star

Fell from its celestial sphere!

Elizabeth gives an acid response:

A queen of fable! My compliments --

I’d not suggest you flatter.

Superb in beauty --- intelligence

I would presume another matter.

Nonetheless, to placate Robert, she agrees to a meeting with Mary. As a flimsy camouflage, she will lead a hunting party in the woods near Mary’s prison, where she is sometimes allowed to walk attended. Elizabeth’s private feelings do not bode well:

The crown from my forehead

Her plan is to plunder;

The hearts of my people

She wrenches asunder.

My court she may covet --

This I could pass over --

But now my beloved

She snatches away.

Her final maneuver

I mean to repay.

The scene changes to the grounds outside the prison at Fotheringay, where Mary Stuart is allowed a daily walk, attended by her faithful Hannah, with the inevitable guards in the background.

Although known to posterity as Mary of Scotland, Mary of France would be a more fitting title. Her mother was French; it was in France that she spent her youth, and it was there, at the age of sixteen, that she became Queen of France. These are the days that she recalls with nostalgia, in the loneliness of her pres-ent confinement -- a prison to which one person alone holds the key. For the mo-ment, she is happy simply to be outdoors in the open. “Release! Escape from darkness!”

The sparkling meadow, the warm soft breeze seem to bring back precious memories:

Oh, cloud floating gently past meadow and grove,

Bear onward my yearning, bear onward my love

To that far off land where I lived long ago,

The scene of my childhood, the people I know,

The home so familiar I left long ago . . .

Hannah, her companion, grimly brings her back to reality:

Of granite and mortar,

Those heavy walls are still intact.

Hunting horns are heard in the distance -- the queen’s royal party. Hannah, the realist, sums up the situation:

Now the tyrant would gun down the prey.

Robert, however, arrives first. He comes to prepare Mary for the approaching confrontation on which her very life depends, and to urge discretion, humility, submissiveness, to which she replies:

Become a beggar! For her!

To kneel down! To grovel!

You ask too much;

My wrongs I feel too keenly.

But their duet soon evolves from fear, defiance and despair into a mutual declara-tion of love, and Mary promises to play out the role of humble petitioner to the best of her ability. Elizabeth enters, accompanied by two of her advisers -- Cecil, who consistently tries to exacerbate her hatred of Mary, and Talbot, who pleads on Mary’s behalf. Elizabeth, taken aback by Mary’s initial silence, begins:

As haughty as ever!

Of guilt not a token.

The pride still unbroken

Will drive me insane.

The vixen is clever

And eager to reign . . .

The meeting which has begun so badly rapidly deteriorates. Mary, exchanging furtive glances with Robert, makes a valiant attempt at remorse and humility:

Dead to ambition,

Past dreams of glory, power and majesty,

Here I kneel,

Bow my head and plead for pardon.

Sins of youth I’ve long repented.

Oh, extend the hand of mercy!

Ah, my sister! The battle between us is over --

May peace prevail!

For most humbly I surrender.

Oh, pursue your prey no longer;

Raise your sister from despair.

But Elizabeth, goaded on by Cecil, and no doubt stirred by the jealous agony of seeing Mary and Robert together, will have none of this:

No! You well deserve your prison;

You can pray for mercy there . . .

Go inquiring.

Ask around to find the reason.

Go inquiring.

Ask your husband that lies buried;

Ask the assassin you took for a lover;

Ask the ghost that cries for vengeance.

Your roving eye

You have cast upon my throne.

Seek no further for the reason;

Look within yourself alone.

Her scathing attack ends with a taunt:

Thrice already you have married,

And three husbands have you buried.

Comb the country of the north;

Who would dare become the fourth?

Mary, outraged beyond endurance, has ample weaponry with which to respond:

Daughter of the whore Anne Boleyn,

Jealous of the crown you’ve stolen,

Dare she boast of pride and honor?

Painted hag, I spit upon her!

With this, Mary virtually invites her death sentence. The act ends with another grand ensemble:

ELIZABETH:

Drag her off, a fiend demented!

Death to one abhorred and hated!

My own mother desecrated,

And my rightful claim denied!

Though to see her I consented,

Her abuse I’ll not abide.

The chorus has the final word:

On the scaffold now for certain

She shall pay the price of pride.

On her future draw the curtain;

Hope and promise here have died.

Mary’s fate would seem to be certain, but as the third act opens, Elizabeth is still in an agony of indecision, aware of the momentous consequences of a death war-rant for a sister queen. What will the world, what will history think? The pen-dulum swings back and forth. Cecil, as ever, is goading her on:

You ponder, do nothing,

And meanwhile, she lives to gloat . . .

She has plotted, fabricated,

Flouted every law created.

True compatriots of your dominion

Leap to rally round the throne.

Sign the warrant! World opinion

Will applaud you and condone.

Elizabeth takes the plunge and signs the warrant. Too late, Robert comes to plead again for Mary. The scene flowers into another eloquent ensemble, a trio:

ROBERT:

Drag her not off, too young to go

Forced to her final hour.

Yield to my prayer! Relent, forbear!

Show mercy wedded to power.

ELIZABETH:

Vainly you pray and plead for her;

Now pity and I are strangers . . .

Only through blood and fortitude

Will peace relight the land.

CECIL:

Until the day you’re free of her,

Your power is built on sand.

Hardened by her decision, Elizabeth, as if in self-justification, but in fact yield-ing to the demon of jealousy that is devouring her within, turns deliberately cruel, sadistic. Twisting the knife, she commands Robert to go as witness, to see Mary climb the scaffold. As for herself:

My heart has turned to stone.

Mary Stuart is doomed to die.

ROBERT:

Tears and persuasion are helpless to save her.

Lost is the battle to shield her, defend her.

Comfort only do I have now to render;

On that support she can always rely.

CECIL:

England now marches with head lifted high.

Mary in her prison chamber awaits the inevitable death warrant, her sorrow and fear tempered with a fleeting sense of triumph and vindication:

For once, I hurled her down from her lofty summit.

She is soon brought down to earth by fear of what will happen to Robert, who has bravely, no doubt unwisely, pleaded on her behalf:

She’s a tyrant.

Upon his head will fall the hammer!

Cecil, her arch-enemy, brings the fatal warrant that again provokes Mary’s scathing sense of outrage:

Is this your English custom?

A queen in but half a day tried and sentenced? . . .

Exiled from Scotland and my religion,

I came to her searching for peace and refuge,

And instead found a prison.

But it is Talbot, who has befriended her all along, who now stays to console her, and also to hear her final confession. For Mary indeed has a heavy burden on her conscience. Her life has not been serene or guiltless. Too often she has been caught in the vortex of passion:

Blood stains my conscience.

A nightmare of ghostly phantoms

Will not go away,

Barring ever from me the grace of God . . .

Bathed in a glow, my life began,

A sparkling morn, new-showered;

There in a garden of innocence

My soul awoke and flowered.

By love was I transported

To the open pit of hell.

Her feverish confession ends on an exalted note of serenity and faith in the life to come -- the life that transcends prison walls:

Now that the light is lowering,

Soon will the call be sounded,

I shall approach my journey

Tranquil and unafraid.

Nourished too long on tears of woe,

On fragile hopes unfounded,

There to a greater life I go,

Beyond this barricade.

Talbot adds his reassurance:

Freed from the chains of mortality,

By prison walls surrounded,

Ascend to a mansion in paradise,

On wings of love conveyed.

There in the glow of radiance,

Bathing in bliss unbounded,

You will forget life’s agony;

The storm and fury will fade.

Though fervently denying her complicity in the crime that serves as a pretext for her execution, Mary knows that she has much to atone for, and is ready to forgive:

From one whose sorrows are nearly over,

Tell my oppressor that I forgive her.

Of death no longer am I afraid.

In blood and ashes my debt is paid.

Clasping the hand of Robert, she walks to the scaffold:

Arm in arm, love, you promised to guide me

From the dark of a long degradation.

Unto death, knowing you walk beside me,

Armed with courage and comfort I go . . .

The chorus again has the final word:

Rage and terror now transcended,

She receives the mortal blow.