San Francisco Opera Guild: Mary, Queen of Scots preview

Join us for a 90-minute preview and presentation by Laura Stanfield Prichard about Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots . At 18 years old, Mary is poised, politically savvy, and confident in her divine claim to the Scottish throne. However, the Scotland she returns to bears little resemblance to the country she left behind as a child. Mary must outmaneuver her power-hungry male advisors to hold on to her throne. In Mary, Queen of Scots , composer Thea Musgrave brings one of history’s most captivating figures to the stage with a score as bold and compelling as its heroine. As Mary navigates a treacherous political landscape, she leans on her closest advisors: her calculating half-brother James, Earl of Moray; the enigmatic Earl of Bothwell; and her charming, but weak-willed future husband, Lord Darnley. Slowly, but surely, each man’s hunger for her power reveals itself in increasingly manipulative ways, and Mary must outmaneuver one betrayal after the next. Making her company debut, Clelia Cafiero conducts this co-production with English National Opera by director/designer Stewart Laing sets 16th-century intrigue against a backdrop of contemporary Scottish life and sectarian violence, lending fresh resonance to an almost 500-year-old story. Laura Stanfield Prichard studied at Yale, Emory, and the University of Illinois; she holds master’s and doctoral degrees in choral conducting, library science, musicology, and education. She lectures regularly for the San Francisco and Chicago Symphonies and opera companies in Boston and San Francisco (since 1995). The Boston Musical Intelligencer sent her to Cuba in 2015 as a foreign correspondent, and she has reviewed concerts for them since 2010. She was the President of the Pacific Chapter of the College Music Society (1996-98) and Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus under Vance George (1995-2003). She and her husband Michael sing with the Boston and San Francisco Symphony Choruses. Her twenty-five continu