Maria Stuarda : Krief, Carminati / Teatro La Fenice, Cedolins, Ganassi, Bros, etc (2009 Stereo)

Gaetano Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - complete

Maria Stuarda - Fiorenza Cedolins
Elisabetta - Sonia Ganassi
Roberto - Jose Bros
Giorgio Talbot - Mirco Palazzi
Guglielmo Cecil - Marco Caria
Anna Kennedy - Pervin Chakar
Teatro La Fenice Chorus and Orchestra (chorus master: Claudio Marion Moretti)
Fabrizio Maria Carminati, conductor

Denis Krief, stage director, set, costume and lighting designer
Recorded: live from Teatro La Fenice Venice, 04/2009
Run Time: 140 min.

“Maria Stuarda”, the tragedy of the Stuart Queen Mary and her embittered foe Elizabeth, is the most popular work in Donizetti’s trilogy of bel canto operas on Tudor queens (next to “Anna Bolena” and “Roberto Devereux”). In Donizetti’s version, the two women fight less over power than over the love of a man, the Earl of Leicester. Among the highlights of this bel canto masterpiece are the dialogue of the two queens in Act II, the duet between Mary and Talbot in Act III, and Mary’s dramatic aria before her execution.

The production of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice shows Maria and Elisabetta both as prisoners, trapped in a labyrinth that is the central set element in Italian-based Franco-Tunisian director Denis Krief’s staging. While Maria is Elisabetta’s prisoner, Elisabetta, too, “is anything but free, caught as she is in Maria’s psychological net” (Denis Krief). With his sharp and lively conducting, Fabrizio Maria Carminati puts the Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice entirely at the service of three exceptional singers, Sonia Ganassi (“an extraordinary performance,” Opera Today) as Elisabetta, Fiorenza Cedolins (“colorful, nuanced, highly dramatic heroine,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) as Maria Stuarda, and Jose Bros as a passionate Leicester. The recording was made at Venice’s beautiful Teatro La Fenice, rebuilt after the fire that destroyed it in 1996.