At the Salzburg Festival, a "Maria Stuarda" decapitated by boredom and Ulrich Rasche's staging

How boring! We will never know the effect produced from a distance by this new production of Maria Stuarda , by Donizetti, whose premiere, captured live from the Grand Palais des Festivals in Salzburg on Friday, August ¹ , was broadcast in real time on the Mezzo channel. Director Ulrich Rasche designed a monumental set (probably with the best effect on screen) which places the Queen of Scots and her rival, Elizabeth I (1533-1603), on two irreconcilable "planets" . Namely, two enormous spinners which, while rotating, can tilt and move in all spatial dimensions.

The synopsis, taken from the famous play by Friedrich Schiller (also a historian), revolves around a meeting that never took place – Schiller was also a playwright! – that of the enemy “sisters”, whose confrontation will lead to the death of Mary Stuart, beheaded in 1587, on the orders of the sovereign of England.

In addition to being particularly noisy (we hear creaking, grinding, squealing, crackling), the mechanism induces an inexorable slowness on the plate, which, while not without symbolizing the implacable turn of destiny and time, introduces itself into the bodies in an overwhelming clockwork round.

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