Salzburg Festival 2025: Maria Stuarda

At the Salzburg Festival, director Ulrich Rasche shapes Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda into “a Sisyphean image and a powerful metaphor for the mechanics of power in which everyone here is trapped” (NZZ), by moving the action onto enormous discs, “with people who must relentlessly march towards their fate on them” (Kurier). This striking interpretation is perfectly completed by the outstanding performances of the two women at the centre of the story. “Kate Lindsey (Elisabetta) was able to clothe the character’s brokenness, her remorse and indignation, in a flowing song, with an almost theatrical clarity of articulation, on the one hand, and a passionate, full-bodied sound on the other” (WDR). Lisette Oropesa, as her opponent Maria Stuarda, “stands opposite her in gleaming white, but her voice sounds wonderfully warm and full-bodied. She has a

sure command of the high notes and coloratura. But even more impressive than her acrobatics is her expressiveness: when she loves and suffers, she is completely herself, and we are completely with her” (BR).