Ballet by Bridget Breiner
Based on the drama of the same name by Friedrich Schiller
Music by Benjamin Britten & James MacMillan
PRESENTATION
England in the year 1587: two women are at the pinnacle of power
in a world otherwise dominated by men. Mary Stuart, Queen of
of Scotland, alleged murderer of her husband, contender for the throne of
English throne and leader of the Catholic opposition meets her counterpart Elizabeth I.
against her counterpart Elizabeth I. The Queen of England dominates as a
symbol of the virtuous regent and protector of the Anglican Church
Church, she rules her country with an iron hand. Everything about these two women screams
for confrontation. The political flashpoint is only exacerbated by the
fueled by the personal conflicts between the two rivals. A
failed assassination attempt on Elisabeth leads to Mary, who ends up on the scaffold for treason.
on the scaffold for treason.
Two centuries later, in the year 1800, the poet Friedrich Schiller
Schiller escalated the situation between the two female
characters to a greater degree than is evidenced by the historical sources and
and thus created a gripping drama between politics, rivalry and
femininity that has lost none of its significance even today. Having arrived in
arrived in the present day, ballet director Bridget Breiner takes
Schiller's original as an opportunity to focus on precisely these themes in
her narrative ballet about the hostile regents.
With works by the British composer Benjamin Britten and the contemporary
Scottish composer James MacMillan, English and Scottish sounds also meet on a musical
English and Scottish forces of sound come together to make the drama tangible.
make the drama palpable.
The large-scale interdisciplinary ballet project, in which Breiner
also incorporates the BADISCHEN STAATSOPERNCHOR both scenically and musically,
had to be postponed several times due to the pandemic and is now finally
finally in her fourth season as ballet director of the
STAATSBALLETT KARLSRUHE for the world premiere.
