Gloriana

Performed at Madrid's historic Teatro Real in 2018, Ivor Bolton conducts Benjamin Britten's opera based on Lytton Strachey's 1928 Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History. In her repeated clashes with the Earl of Essex-a longtime favorite of the queen who was ultimately put to death for treason-Elizabeth I is depicted as flawed and vain, human and sympathetic.

Cast

Anna Caterina Antonacci

Queen Elizabeth I

Leonardo Capalbo

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex

Paula Murrihy

Frances, Countess of Essex

Duncan Rock

Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy

Sophie Bevan

Penelope, Lady Rich

Leigh Melrose

Sir Robert Cecil

David Soar

Sir Walter Raleigh

Benedict Nelson

Henry Cuffe

Elena Copons

A Lady-in-Waiting

James Creswell

A Blind Ballad-Singer