🎬 Streaming platform: Medici.tv – Maria Stuarda (Salzburg Festival 2025)
📍 Location: Salzburg Festival
📅 Date and time: Friday, August 1, 2025 — Live at 8:15 PM (local time, Salzburg / GMT+2)
🎭 Stage director: Ulrich Rasche
🎼 Conductor: Antonello Manacorda
🎤 Cast:
Lisette Oropesa (Maria Stuarda)
Kate Lindsey (Elisabetta)
Bekhzod Davronov (Roberto)
Aleksei Kulagin (Talbot)
Thomas Lehman (Cecil)
Nino Gotoshia (Anna Kennedy)
Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Dancers from SEAD
Disclaimer
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OVERVIEW
Two queens, two claims to the throne, one unforgettable confrontation: Maria Stuarda, Donizetti’s fictionalized account of the rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, returns to the Salzburg Festival in a new production directed by Ulrich Rasche — and it comes with a stellar cast.
Lisette Oropesa sings the title role with her signature blend of vocal finesse and dramatic intensity, while Kate Lindsey brings authority and nuance to the role of Elisabetta. The two portrayals are framed as psychological mirrors: rivals in power, yet united by loneliness, fragility, and the political structures that define and confine them. Their famous onstage showdown, imagined by Friedrich Schiller and later adapted by Donizetti, remains one of opera’s most electrifying confrontations.
Behind the podium, Antonello Manacorda leads the Vienna Philharmonic and a chorus that includes members of the Vienna State Opera and the Angelika Prokopp Sommerakademie. Bekhzod Davronov joins as Roberto, the conflicted Leicester caught between the two monarchs.
With a stark, stylized production and a heightened emotional arc compressed into the final 24 hours before Mary’s execution, this Salzburg staging explores not only the political tensions but also the existential isolation of two women bound by destiny — and history.
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