Truth and Reality in Operatic Librettos (part two)

It is the entire approach of the opera's story which is completely unhistorical. Whatever the coincidence of detail. Sixteenth century Anne Boleyn, wanton, reckless, sexual, indiscreet if at the same time unlucky in her fate, was never anything like the pious romantic basically innocent and therefore wronged heroine of l9th century Donizetti and Romani. In Anna Boleud, then, we have the classic of the fictionalised historical opera - accurate in many of its small points perhaps but basically quite false in its conception of characters and situations. Turning to the third of the trio, Roberto Deevereux first performed in 1837.a nd centring on Anne Boleyn's great daughter Elizabeth: at first sight this might seem to have even less to commend it historically than Anna Bolerla, since the relationship of Roberto (Earl of Essex) to Sara Duchessa di Nottingham has no proper foundation whatsoever, unlike Anne's relations with Percy. in marked contrast, for example, to the flat character portrayal of the Qucen in Rossini's Elisubetta d'lnghilterra, where Elizabeth emerges as a mere cardboard rf comrnanding figure,I do find tn Roberto eyereux some proper psychological insight into her problems.
For the crux of the plot of Roberto Devereux is the conflict in Elrzabeth.between her role as monarch and her role as a woman. and this after all is a situation which not only existed historically, but has been the subject of endless speculative enquiry ever since. It is true that the earlier triangular situation of Elizabeth, Leicester and Amy Robsart has probably more parallels to the story of the opera than that of the real Elizabeth and the real Essex.Nevertheless in the Queen's great aria beginning 'E Sara' in the last Act. in which she reflects in agony' At last I am just a woman', is contained not only the message of the opera but also the fundamental truth about the historic Queen herself
It is however in Maria Stuarda, the middle member of the trio. first perforrned in 1835, and the central chiracter study of the Queen of Scots herself. that it seems to me we find the finest illustration of the kind of truth which can be contained within an operatic libretto, a truth not necessarily born out by reality. It was in fact of the three Maria Stuarda which converted me away from my original faintly derisive attitude to the sort of history encased in coloratura singing towards a more tolerant viewpoint, that all that warbles is not necessarily (historically) worthless.
How cant hat be true when the most famous scene of all. the crisis of the action, that of the famous confrontation in the forest between the two Queens is definitely not founded in fact but taken from Schiilers play of 1800? The opera rests on a contrast between two powerful personalities, and this conflict is brought to life in a scene of extraordinary vividness (so that historical films have been copying it ever since) which is nevertheless the product of Schrller's imagination. It is true that once again as with Anna Bolena not all the historical details culled from Schiller's play are as ungrounded as might be supposed. When I reread Schiller, out of curiosity, having just finished my own researches on the subject, I was taken aback to discover how much of the substance of the history had been preserved, considering the wild departure made in the central scene. Nevertheless that departure - dramatically quite justifiable. in my view, but that is another story - means that Maria Stuarda does lose all its irnrnediate pretensionsto being any sort of historical contribution.
For instance, there is manifest falsity of the marriage negotiations of Elisabetta and Anjou, which had in fact taken place nearly ten years earlier. Then there is the alleged romance of Maria and Leicester. which never took place at all, or certainly not in this romantic clandestine form. Fifteen years earlier in 1563 Queen Elizabeth herself had suggested Leicester as a possible bridegroom for the youthful widowed Queen Mary, for motives which remain historically obscure. It was Mary on this occasion who had rejected Leicester with scorn,as a man who was not only of tainted stock (his father had been executed for treason) but was
rumoured throughout Europe to be Elizabeth's own lover, and to have killed his own wife in order to marry her. Mary was surprised that Elizabeth was 'willing' to give her a man so dearly prized by herself as Mary's ambassador Maitland tactfully put it. We can therefores carcely i magine her in 1586 singing that touching duet of Act 2 Scene I with Leicester 'Da tutti abbondonata' - 'Forsaken by the world, only your love can solace me in all my woe', nor for that matter Leicester replying 'Only listen to me and believe in me and you will find your fortunes change.'
For all these caveats, for me at any rate, Maria Stuarda, of all the fictionalised versions of Mary's unhappy but infinitely melodramatic life, does express most clearly what Lytton Strachey once termed an artistic truth. This roughly translated means something which ought to be true but isn't. Lytton Strachey himself in Eminent Victorians invented the fact that Matthew Arnold had short legs, and deduced much of his character from this phenomenon. when it was pointed out to him that Arnold had not actually had short legs, he merely replied grandly: 'Artistically, he had short legs.'In the same way, I find in the opera of Maria Stuarda a tremendously strong impression, in artistic terms, of the character of Mary Queen of Scots. I have in mind her particular histrionic quality. It is perhaps cheating a little to say of particular operatic heroines that they display histrionic qualities, as presumably one and all they do, or at any rate should do. Yet there is something peculiarly histrionic about Donizetti's Mary - or rather she is both histrionic and dignified, thus grasping one of the important truths about the real life Mary, that she knew how to combine the two qualities at one and the same time.
When one analyses the famous fictional confrontation, and the dramatic moment when Mary cries out 'vil bastarda', one's first reaction may be - how absurd. how inaccurate, how plainly untrue, but how magnificent; but on second thoughts it is possible that is exactly how Mary Queen of Scots wouldhavebehaved if such a scene had ever taken place. After all, by strict Roman Catholic standards - Mary's own - Elizabeth was a bastard, because her father's marriage to Anne Boleyn in the lifetime of Katherine of Aragon was never considered to be valid. Even more important than the religious stigma was the fact that this alleged bastardy gave Mary her own claim to the English throne. First made on her behalf in 1558 at the death of Queen Mary Tudor, this claim was in turn the basis of much English dislike and downright suspicion of Mary Stuart throughout her life.