Released October 2015 • Erato

Maria Stuarda

New Year’s Eve 2012 brought the first-ever performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, famed for its incendiary – if fictional – confrontation between Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots) and Queen Elizabeth I of England. Based on a play by Friedrich Schiller, Maria Stuarda achieved new currency in the 1960s, and the title role has attracted such legendary singers as Joan Sutherland, Leyla Gencer, Beverley Sills, Janet Baker – and here, Joyce DiDonato. Directing the production, with its striking use of vivid colors and stark imagery, was David McVicar.