Truth and Reality in Operatic Librettos (part three)

Now if one imagines oneself reconstructing the proper scene between Mary and Elizabeth, I have always thought that Mary would have begun with fairwords and soft humility even begging Elizabeth in the words of the opera 'to raise up a wretched woman, who casts herself upon your heart' - for much was exactly the spirit displayed by Mary in all her innumerable pleading and begging letters to Elizabeth ir"r captivity.'Sorella' cries Dorrizetti's Maria appealingly, and one is reminded forcibly of Mary's own letters which so often beggar - with the placatory and yet hopeful address of 'Sister'. However, I have also had a feeling that on receipt of Elizabeth's insults, even without the added motive of Leicester's love, she rnight well have got around to 'Quale insulta,' shortly followed by my favourite line in thew hole opera' Figlia impuri di Bolena'.Mary Queen of Scots was after all nothing if not a queen she who had been a queen in her own right since she was six days old, and who placed her royalty above her beauty and her affections" might not have stood meekly by the daughter of Anne Boleyn in one of her more imperious moods.
Furthermore the great last act seems a positive alfirmation of Mary's reallife conduct. Mary did refuse to see Protestant ministers, and the words of the opera 'l will remain what I have been, a stranger to your practices' are very close to her own. Her final words of repentance correspond even more closely to the record of her sayings by l-rerp hysician. when she actually did say of the good thief that 'in truth he was a great sinner, but not as great as I have been.' Even the penultimate 'Deh ! non piangete' is extremely close to the contemporary record when she murmured to her ladies in attendance 'Ne crie point pour moi.'These small but mounting details in the opera add up, as they did in real life, to an end which is tragic. poignant, and above all dignified, the ending which has made Mary's execution for ever in the eyes of the world. All of this the opera Mariu Stuardab rings to life for me in a particular way which is necessarily outside the scope of a historical book, and apparently beyond the scope of films and plays. As a historiant hercforeo ne is not only grateful for the experiene of Maria Stuurtla but also inclined to a more sympathetic view of 'artistic truth' in the future, at any rate in operatic terms.