Gaetano Donizetti
Maria Stuarda

The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, who rivaled her English cousin Queen Elizabeth I, is staged in a restrained and austere manner. Life is shown as confrontation of love and politics. The need to be just a woman and the lust for power are tragically intertwined in the destinies of the two queens, leading one of them to the scaffold and giving the other the eternal stigma of the executioner queen. In the finale, Mary dies, making Elizabeth look into the eyes of eternity.