Mary, Queen of Scots

From Barnton to the King's Theatre

Thea Musgrave was born on 27 May 1928 in Barnton, Edinburgh. She read music at the University of Edinburgh, went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger between 1950 and 1954, and worked with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1958. In 1971 she married the American violist and conductor Peter Mark, and in 1972 she moved to the United States, where she has lived ever since. By then she already had three operas behind her, and The Voice of Ariadne followed in 1973.

Mary, Queen of Scots was a Scottish Opera commission, the last of a quartet of new works from Scottish composers that the company launched with BBC support from 1974. It opened on 6 September 1977 at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh International Festival, directed by Colin Graham and conducted by the composer. Catherine Wilson sang Mary, with Jake Gardner as her half-brother James Stewart, David Hillman as Darnley, Gregory Dempsey as Bothwell and Stafford Dean as Riccio. The premiere ran up against a much-praised Carmen at the same festival, yet Opera Scotland records that of the four commissions it received the warmest reception. Scottish Opera then toured it to Glasgow, Newcastle upon Tyne and Wolverhampton that autumn.

The work itself

Musgrave wrote her own libretto, drawing on Moray, an unpublished play by the Peruvian writer Amalia Elguera, with whom she had worked before. The opera deliberately avoids the imprisonment and execution that most dramatisations of Mary reach for. Its three acts cover Scotland between 1561 and 1568: the young queen's return from France, her contest with James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her marriage to Lord Darnley, the murder of her secretary David Riccio, the rise of the Earl of Bothwell, and her forced abdication and flight. Three men try to control her and take her power; the drama is in how she resists each in turn.

The published score, issued by Novello, lists two hours and twelve minutes of music for an orchestra with harp and organ, a chorus of at least 32 singers and a dozen solo roles. Reviewers of the 2025 London staging heard the mid-century British lineage clearly. The Classical Source found sections that echoed Peter Grimes and Gloriana, a Verdian conspirators' trio in the second act and a third-act lullaby. Opera Today described an orchestration that keeps an ominous background under a Britten-like directness, with plainsong, Scottish traditional material and courtly dances woven through, so that Mary's inner turmoil is carried by the music rather than spelt out in the text.

America, a recording, then a long quiet

The United States premiere came quickly, at Virginia Opera on 29 March 1978, with Ashley Putnam as Mary. A live recording of that production was released on CD in 1989 and remains the opera's only commercial recording. San Francisco first heard the piece in April 1979, when Spring Opera Theater, San Francisco Opera's affiliate company, staged it at the Curran Theatre with Musgrave conducting. New York City Opera took it up in 1981 and Bielefeld gave the German premiere in 1984.

After that the trail goes cold for a long time. Opera Scotland notes no subsequent regular revivals in the composer's home country. Musgrave herself kept writing for the stage: A Christmas Carol in 1979, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in 1981, Harriet, the Woman Called Moses in 1985, Simón Bolívar in 1995, Pontalba in 2003 and, at the age of 95, Orlando – An Escapade in 2024. She was appointed CBE in 2002, received the Queen's Medal for Music in 2017 and an Ivors Classical Music Award in 2018, and holds two Guggenheim Fellowships. She has called Mary, Queen of Scots the cornerstone of her operatic repertoire.

London, February 2025: the Coliseum finally stages it

English National Opera gave the opera its London premiere in February 2025, a run of just two performances at the Coliseum. Joana Carneiro conducted, and Stewart Laing both directed and designed. Heidi Stober sang Mary, with Alex Otterburn as James Stewart, Rupert Charlesworth as Darnley, John Findon as Bothwell, Barnaby Rea as Riccio, Darren Jeffery as Cardinal Beaton and Alastair Miles as Lord Gordon. Musgrave, then 96, was in the house and was applauded at length.

Laing set the piece in an empty black space in present-day Scotland. A marquee is erected and then dismantled across the first two acts, a community event standing in for a royal court; by the third act Mary sits alone on a bare platform with a pushchair. Mady Berry's costumes put her first in a puffa jacket, sunglasses and baseball cap, and the chorus in drab coats and woollen hats against the weather.

The reviews split sharply on the concept while agreeing on the singer. Theatre and Tonic gave four stars and recommended it as a first opera. The Reviews Hub complained that there was little sense of royalty or of a court full of factions, and found the marquee idea incoherent. The Classical Source's David Gutman thought the contemporary clothes undercut the opera's argument about misogyny and made Mary look merely petulant, yet called the chorus and principals thrillingly committed. Opera Today's Curtis Rogers judged the abstraction a help in clarifying the politics, though he wondered whether village-scale quarrels could carry national consequences. Bachtrack's Nick Boston wrote that Stober utterly nailed Mary's doomed attempts to stand alone. Several critics noted the lopsided shape of the evening, with roughly ninety minutes before the interval and a third act of around 25 minutes that races through the ending.

San Francisco, September 2026

San Francisco Opera announced the production as part of its 2026–27 season and confirmed casting in a press release ahead of the 20 September 2026 opening. It is a co-production with English National Opera, and the first time the company has put the opera on its own mainstage at the War Memorial Opera House, 47 years after the affiliate staging at the Curran. Six performances run to 4 October. Gramilano previewed the run on 6 September 2026, describing Laing's staging as drawing parallels between sixteenth-century political conflict and present-day social divisions.

Clelia Cafiero conducts in her company debut, and Laing also makes his. Stober returns as Mary. The British baritone Thomas Mole makes his American debut as James Stewart, with Christopher Sokolowski as Darnley, Thomas Kinch as Bothwell, Hadleigh Adams as Riccio, David Soar as Cardinal Beaton, Olivier Zerouali as Morton, Chance Jonas-O'Toole as Ruthven and Philip Skinner as Lord Gordon. Four current Adler Fellows sing the ladies-in-waiting. Lighting is by D.M. Wood and Mimi Jordan Sherin, choreography by Colm Seery, and John Keene directs the chorus.

Musgrave, now 98, welcomed the revival in the company's announcement, and San Francisco Opera has framed the run as an early marker for her centenary in 2028. The 26 September performance will be livestreamed and available on demand for 48 hours afterwards. A post-performance talk with music director Eun Sun Kim and Cafiero follows the closing matinee on 4 October.