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Bel canto opera cinema that makes history: Joyce DiDonato as the first Maria Stuarda at the Met When Joyce DiDonato steps into the role of the great “drama queens,” opera audiences cheer. On New Year’s Eve 2012, moreover, she made musical history – as Mary Stuart in Donizetti’s opera of the same name, based on Schiller’s drama, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Hard to believe: it was the very first performance of the bel canto opera at the Met! Outside the USA, thanks to live cinema broadcasts, a worldwide audience was able to follow the gripping music and staging – as a foretaste of the DVD of the production now being released “It is an incredible privilege to bring this operatic figure to life at the Met for the first time in its history,” says the American singer, “it is a high point in my career.” The press hailed DiDonato’s embodiment of one of the great tragic figures in British history as absolutely exemplary: Mary Stuart, who, as the Scottish rival of England’s Queen Eli-sabeth I, gave her life on the scaffold in 1587. Amid David McVicar’s colorful staging and conducted by Maurizio Benini, South African soprano Elza van den Heever provides Joyce DiDonato’s antagonist as Elizabeth I, and Matthew Polenzani shines as Mary’s lover Leicester. The work had its tumultuous premiere in 1834: even during rehearsals, the prima donnas quarreled. Censorship harassment widened the scandal. Maria Stuarda disappeared into the archives after its unsuccessful premiere. It was not until 1958 that the bel canto masterpiece finally conquered the stages of the world. With Joyce DiDonato, it has now also found its way to the Met. |