About the work
Friedrich Schiller's tragedy „Maria Stuart" was written in 1799-1800 and premiered in Weimar under Goethe's direction in 1800. Schiller compresses the historical events — the final three days of the Scottish queen Mary Stuart before her execution in 1587 — and builds the dramatic climax around the famous fictional meeting of the two queens.
Plot
England, 1587. Mary Stuart, once Queen of Scotland, has been an English prisoner for years. Queen Elizabeth I, her cousin, fears her as the legitimate Catholic claimant to the throne. Mary, held at Fotheringhay Castle, is drawn by the young admirer Mortimer into a rescue plot. Lord Leicester, formerly Mary's lover and now Elizabeth's favourite, plays a double game. In the famous third act — Schiller's invention — the two queens meet in the park of Fotheringhay. Mary, at first humble, breaks out into pride and insults Elizabeth („A bastard sullies your throne"). Elizabeth leaves the park enraged, and the death sentence becomes inevitable. Mortimer's rescue attempt fails; he stabs himself. Elizabeth hesitantly signs the death warrant but shifts responsibility onto her secretary Davison. Before her execution Mary receives communion from her confessor Melvil; with calm dignity she goes to her death. Elizabeth, left alone, pretends Davison acted on his own initiative and dismisses her advisers.
Cultural significance
Maria Stuart is Schiller's most mature tragedy and one of the densest texts of German Classicism. The fictional confrontation scene is regarded as a pinnacle of German drama of ideas — Schiller sets two political and psychological antitypes against one another. Donizetti's opera „Maria Stuarda" (1835) and countless films (Phyllida Lloyd's „Mary Queen of Scots" 2018 with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie) have further popularised the material. Continuously performed on German stages; productions by Peter Stein and Karin Beier are reference points.