The week in classical: Mary, Queen of Scots; Academy Symphony Orchestra/ Wilson; James MacMillan: Ordo Virtutum

The Guardian

22-02-2025

In the madness of royal succession, a baby in a buggy is proclaimed king, his mother robbed of the crown and banished. Mary, Queen of Scots (1977), a three-act opera by Thea Musgrave, focuses on the seven years leading up to that moment of exile. History is rewritten in the telling, but the atrocity of Mary's story burns through. Sexual politics, shattered trust and religious turbulence eddy and seethe, all to a huge orchestral score and the actions of four earls, two lords, a cardinal and the rabble-rousing people of Scotland, as well as the queen's household of women.
In a move as plucky as it was, in some ways, baffling, English National Opera presented Mary, Queen of Scots in a modest semi-staging by director-designer Stewart Laing (woolly hats, anoraks, railings and a dismal, half-built frame marquee). Cast, chorus and orchestra, under the baton of Joana Carneiro, had mastered Musgrave's complex score and wordy text (the composer's own) to the highest standard. The regret was that this exhaustive effort, for whatever reasons of cost or nerve, resulted in only two performances – both sold out.
Making her ENO debut in the title role, the American soprano Heidi Stober gave a ferocious account of a power-hungry monarch determined to follow her own path when her drunken husband, Darnley (Rupert Charlesworth), half-brother James (Alex Otterburn) and the seedily rapacious Bothwell (John Findon) prove useless. After the slow explication of the first act – a full production might have clarified all the patrician comings and goings – the pace quickens. Intimate scenes have dramatic force. The noisy, roaring volleys of brass, keening woodwind and outbursts of orchestral menace grip the attention, gathering speed and volume towards the finale.
The 96-year-old composer, Edinburgh-born but living in America for more than half a century, had travelled to the UK for the occasion. Taking her bow, she was greeted by an ovation from the enthusiastic audience. Musgrave has managed to bypass the withering nullification of female composers prevalent for most of her career, admired and played if never having the limelight she deserves. An exact contemporary of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), she harnessed her talent to deft instrumental writing when electronic experiment was monster king. She has lived long enough to see that taste has moved on, female composers released from perpetual anchorage and (nearly) properly valued. After this performance, a co-production with San Francisco Opera, she might see, too, that her own work will live on.
Lack of money, loss of morale, the effects of Brexit: these issues dog the lives of professional musicians, however determined they are to give their all as artists. At the Royal Academy of Music last week, a new generation of players, average age 20, demonstrated a can-do determination riven into every note they played. The intake at the RAM is still around 58% British, a number to monitor as UK music education continues to unravel. Fewer students come from Europe, post-Brexit, many from farther afield. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, a wise and inspired principal of the academy as well as a practising musician, is fervent in his belief that a positive mantra can bring about change. He instils this in his students and will not countenance compromise. Nor, too, will the conductor John Wilson, who holds the Henry Wood chair in conducting at the academy.
After working together for an intensive week, six hours a day, Wilson and the Academy Symphony Orchestra gave an outstanding concert of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and a suite from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet. One aspect of the ensemble was immediately clear: the quality of the string sound. This defining section of any orchestra is the hardest in which to achieve blend and expressivity: 50 or so players, with instruments of different quality, using different fingerings or bowing techniques, all able to play the notes but doing it their own way. Wilson, known for his meticulous scrutiny of detail, has introduced them to the sacred principle, which sounds easy enough, of listening. The results were formidable.
There was risk here too. The Tchaikovsky, with a first-year student from Texas, 18-year old Adriana Bec, the virtuosic soloist, was a wild, hair-raising ride, Bec clearly revelling in the chance to pour her energy into a Stradivarius, on loan to her from the academy. The strength of her playing prompted me to ponder the weight of a violin bow: average 60 grams, about the same as an egg. Bec made it at once granite-like and featherlight. She still has three years of study left. Watch for the name.
A short word, because if I get going on Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) it may turn out long, on a work inspired by her morality play Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues). James MacMillan has created a choral drama, luminous, contrapuntal and ecstatic, out of the German nun-mystic's 12th-century chant. The BBC Singers and National Youth Voices conducted by Sofi Jeannin, with percussionist Andrew Barclay adding sonic colour, gave the UK premiere at Milton Court. Humility, chastity and the rest of the heavenly virtues conquer the Devil. You'd better believe it. Hear it on BBC Sounds and live in hope.
(Star ratings) out of five
Mary, Queen of Scots ★★★★
Academy Symphony Orchestra/Wilson ★★★★
James MacMillan: Ordo Virtutum ★★★★