Operatic Tale

Imagine this: One of the area's many composers has been commissioned to write an opera based on a classic play. Of course, every opera needs a libretto, and the composer thinks he has found just the right person to come up with one, having worked with her on similar projects in the past.

The would-be librettist, however, has grown so tired of the opera biz that she has taken a job as a newspaper editor. She wants nothing to do with another opera and won't even return the composer's phone calls.

The deadline for the opera's completion is fast approaching, and the composer is getting nervous, even desperate. So he hires a young law student at Wake Forest University to write a libretto, like, pronto.

However unlikely this scenario seems, something like it happened in 1834 as Gaetano Donizetti wrote Maria Stuarda, conductor James Allbritten said. Allbritten shared this and several other anecdotes to illuminate a show that the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute of UNC School of the Arts will present beginning Wednesday at the Stevens Center.

Love and history

"(The) genesis of this opera … is a fascinating story," Allbritten said during a behind-the-scenes preview of Maria Stuarda in Watson Hall at UNCSA. "It's nearly as fascinating as the life of Mary Stuart herself, and it almost came to the same end, I might add."

Mary Stuart, aka Mary Queen of Scots, famously clashed during the 16th century with Elizabeth I, Queen of England -- a conflict detailed with some dramatic license in Maria Stuarda, which is based on Maria Stuart, a play by Friedrich von Schiller. Patrons familiar with the play will find that in the opera, 21 of the play's characters have been compressed into six and that the opera includes nothing from the play's first act. The first act's largely expository material will be recreated through pantomime during the overture, Allbritten said. Like the play, the opera focuses on a highly charged dialogue between Mary and Elizabeth that never happened in real life.

Allbritten promised "all the great things of opera," including political intrigue and love.

Donizetti's difficulty in finding a librettist for Maria Stuarda -- he settled on law student Giuseppe Bardi after Felice Romani snubbed him -- was the first of many peculiarities surrounding the history of an opera that was initially banned and eventually ended up in a version unlike the original one. This was popularized in a recording featuring the late Beverly Sills. The original score of Maria Stuarda, which was lost until 1989, became the basis for a critical edition of Maria Stuarda that the Fletcher singers will perform.

A little more (juicy) opera history: Maria Stuarda reflects Donizetti's interest in English history. He intended to write it for the opening of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples -- but two problems toward the end of rehearsals prevented that from happening.

Two crises

"One was the divas," Allbritten said, referring to the women who played Elizabeth and Mary. "The other was the censors."

Crisis No. 1: "Tension between the two (divas) had apparently been building in rehearsal," Allbritten said, prompting much laughter as he read one account of their spat. "They abandoned their regal impersonations to engage in an all-out fight. The spectacle of rival prima donnas casting their professional dignity to the winds caused a sensation in Naples and was reported all over Italy." The upshot was that the woman playing Maria lost a very physical struggle and ended up in bed for two weeks.

Crisis No. 2, namely the banning of the opera, is reported to have occurred on the day before Maria Stuarda was to open. This happened either because the Neapolitan king didn't like unhappy endings or because the Neapolitan queen fainted during rehearsals.

"It gets even better," Allbritten said, before describing how Donizetti salvaged Maria Stuarda.

Donizetti used much of Maria Stuarda's music in another opera, Buondelmonte, which premiered in 1834. Maria Stuarda was eventually staged, first with some Donizetti-penned revisions in 1835 and then 17 years after the composer's death, in 1865.

Musical passages "were cut" in the 1865 staging and "some of the new material from Buondelmonte was used in place of the Maria S
tuarda score," according to a review in musicalcriticism.com This 1865 version, used in the aforementioned Sills recording, "became the basis of the performing edition which was used throughout the 20th century until 1989, when the rediscovery of the missing autograph manuscript allowed the restoration of the opera into a more reliable form."

Amanda Moody will play Elisabetta, Queen of England, in the UNCSA production of Maria Stuarda. She said the score that will be heard in the Stevens Center "differs quite a bit" from the one on the Sills recording. She also called the Stevens Center score "really dramatic."

"It's the precursor to Verdi," she said. "You can hear the lushness of where the music is going in the future."

kkeuffel@wsjournal.com
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The A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at UNC School of the Arts will present Maria Stuarda beginning Wednesday in the Stevens Center, 405 W. Fourth St. Shows will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Friday and at 2 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets are $10-$20. See www.uncsa.edu/performances or call 721-1945.