Gaetano Donizetti: Bastarda (4/6)Killing a queen

Before picking up the thread of the story after the devastating confrontation between England’s Tudor Queen Elizabeth I and her Scottish opponent Mary Stuart, the Narrators provide a reminder of Elizabeth’s traumatic childhood: her mother Anne Boleyn was beheaded on the orders of her father Henry VIII when she herself was barely three years old.

Having realised the threat posed by Mary Stuart, Elizabeth sees no other way out: she will also have to have a queen beheaded...

Before being taken to the scaffold, Mary Stuart, surrounded by her followers, bids farewell to life and looks towards the afterlife. Will Elizabeth regret this irrevocable act that reminds her of her own mother’s execution?