Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Thea Musgrave has certainly waited long enough for this. At 96, she seems as full of life as ever, making the journey from her home in the US to attend the overdue, first ever performance of one of her operas at either of London’s major opera houses.A proud Scot, Musgrave is one of a group of British women composers who put themselves on the map after the second world war. It has been fascinating to hear her reminisce about how shocked she was, on her move to the US with her American husband in 1972, to find that a woman composer there was viewed with suspicion.Still composing as she approaches her centenary, Musgrave has built up an impressive work list. At the top come her 11 operas, of which Mary, Queen of Scots, given its premiere by Scottish Opera in 1977 and then briefly touring to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, is arguably her biggest success. It is a fiercely dramatic work, which barely gasps for breath as it hurtles from one full-throttle climax to another, enough to rattle the rafters even in the Coliseum.The Tudor period has long been a happy hunting ground for opera composers. Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, one of the best known, focuses on an entirely fictional meeting between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I and has the advantage of succinctly pitching one queen against another, Scotland against England, Catholic against Protestant.Musgrave chose to go down the Wagner route and write her own libretto, based on a play by Amalia Elguera (“The benefit is one doesn’t argue with oneself as librettist!”). The results are mixed: the language is clear and concise, but the drama gets tied up in a succession of overly similar, confrontational scenes.Aside from the Scottish connection, the attraction for Musgrave was the predicament of Mary herself, a woman alone at the mercy of scheming, treacherous men. The opera is at its most affecting when Mary is contemplating her isolation, arriving in Scotland to find no welcoming party, adrift without a trustworthy adviser, abandoned to her fate.In between, the men jostle for favour, holding nothing back in their ambitious desire to woo the queen, usurp her power, or both. Her husband Darnley murders her lover Riccio. Darnley is himself murdered. One adviser, Bothwell, assaults her, and her driven half-brother James Stewart is assassinated. Several are banished, but then come back. It all gets rather repetitive and entangled.The music, though, leaves little time to be worried about that. To say the score is highly charged would be an understatement. There are oases of calm when Mary is alone and shimmering strings hang in the air like Scottish mists over a lonely solo cor anglais. For the rest, growling low brass and ominous drumbeats unleash electrifying eruptions that threaten to scorch the ears. The English National Opera Orchestra and conductor Joana Carneiro do not hold back.Unfortunately, nothing in Stewart Laing’s grungy production looks as good as the music sounds. The sole visual item for delectation is a steel-framed marquee. Does anybody know why they spent the first half putting it up and then promptly took it down again?An extremely fine cast prevails nonetheless. American soprano Heidi Stober is tireless as Mary, powering out one hefty top note after another, like the vocal equivalent of tossing the caber. Among the variously ghastly men, Alex Otterburn plays James Stewart with restraint, Rupert Charlesworth brings flair to Darnley and John Findon sings with impressive strength as Bothwell. They do Mary, Queen of Scots proud.★★★★☆To February 18, eno.org
