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.
Queen Elizabeth I
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex
Frances, Countess of Essex
Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy
Penelope, Lady Rich
Sir Robert Cecil
Sir Walter Raleigh
Henry Cuffe
A Lady-in-Waiting
A Blind Ballad-Singer
The Spirit of the Masque
The City Crier
The Recorder of Norwhich
A Housewife
The Master of Ceremonies
Vihuela
