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.
Anna Caterina Antonacci
as Queen Elizabeth I
Leonardo Capalbo
as Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex
Paula Murrihy
as Frances, Countess of Essex
Duncan Rock
as Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy
Sophie Bevan
as Penelope, Lady Rich
Leigh Melrose
as Sir Robert Cecil
David Soar
as Sir Walter Raleigh
Benedict Nelson
as Henry Cuffe
Elena Copons
as A Lady-in-Waiting
James Creswell
as A Blind Ballad-Singer