Maria Stuart

   by Friedrich Schiller.

   Premiered 1800. Schiller's five-act blank-verse tragedy about the conflict between the heroine of the title and Queen Elizabeth I features a fictional confrontation between the two that is pure bravura for the actress playing the title role. Schiller took substantial liberties with the historical events surrounding the historical Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor, but the play has enjoyed enormous popularity since its premiere, appearing hundreds of times during the 19th century in the Berlin Royal Theater's repertoire alone. August Wilhelm Iffland presented it there in 1801, serving to popularize it throughout the German-speaking theater. Käthe Dorsch, Elisabeth Flickenschildt, Adele Sandrock, and Paula Wessely are only a few of the 20th century's actresses to have played Maria Stuart successfully. Maria's death scene is a prime example of Schiller's genius with verse, and his play depicts Elizabeth as a broken woman in the face of Maria's courage and true nobility. Leopold Jessner directed a silent film version of the play in 1927; Gaetano Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda, based on the play, premiered in 1835.