Donizetti: Maria Stuarda - Salzburg Festival

‘Cruel woman, you have signed a sister’s death warrant!’

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland — her name will be linked in perpetuity with another name: Elizabeth I of England. Mary and Elizabeth: two queens, two adversaries, two women in the middle of the 16th century. Although ‘sisters and cousins’, they never actually encountered each other in the flesh — contrary to the fictional conceit.