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written by Gaetano Donizetti, directed by Stephen Lawless

Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto

May 1-30, 2010

This is the first time since 1984 that the COC has presented one of Donizetti’s non-comic operas other than his ever-popular Lucia di Lammermoor.  It would be a pity, then, if the inconsistent direction of the company’s first-ever production of Maria Stuarda (1835) turned off the audiences’ desire for more.    

We don’t go to an opera based on the imprisonment and death of Mary, Queen of Scots, expecting historical accuracy, but we do expect the director to make sense of the characters and their roles.  Solemn historical facts of time and place projected on the curtain plus Ingeborg Bernerth’s 16th-century costumes suggest that director Stephen Lawless means to stage the opera seriously.  Yet, as soon as Elizabeth I (Alexandrina Pendatchanska) enters, he shows no interest in royal protocol.  Since when does a queen enter a public theatre carrying her orb and sceptre?  Since when does she scratch her cheek with the sceptre?  Since when does an imprisoned queen about to be executed for treason enter her place of execution in full regalia, including crown, without guards or even an executioner present?  Sloppiness like this undermines our faith that the director knows what he’s doing.  Otherwise, why does he allow Pendatchanska’s smirking, pouting and eye-rolling to make Elizabeth look and act more like Zsa Zsa Gabor?  All the action takes place on a stage in a Renaissance theatre like London’s Globe.  Yet, Lawless makes little use of this built-in theatrical metaphor except near the end when some of the cast take off their Renaissance robes to reveal gym wear, jeans and T-shirts in a vain, last-minute attempt to universalize the action.

Despite the  unfocussed direction, the cast is excellent with one major exception.  Pendatchanska hits all the high notes and tosses out all the trills and roulades Donizetti gives her but makes them sound effortful, unlike the effortless singing of Serena Farnocchia as Mary Stuart.  Both singers have immense lung-power, but only Farnocchia produces a lovely tone and beautiful line.  As Leicester, whom both queens love, Eric Cutler’s tenor is agile and gleaming, while Patrick Carfizzi creates a sympathetic portrait of Mary’s jailer, Talbot.  The COC has neglected the bel canto repertoire, to which Maria Stuarda belongs, for far too long.  Let’s hope that in future the company can find directors able to make these operas not merely showcases for vocal acrobatics but fully engaging stories as well.      

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-05-04.

Photo: Alexandrina Pendatchanska and Serena Farnocchia. ©Michael Cooper.