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