Here she was, Mary, Queen of Scots, right on the stage in San Francisco: impassioned, determined, a bit holier-than-thou. Thea Musgrave’s intense, dramatic opera brought us into a world of hundreds of years ago, with a story of a woman hellbent on getting her way and meeting multiple obstacles, one after the other. One woman creating  another, strangled by the lusts of men wanting her power and more of her than she wants to give. Of course, Mary had her own lust for power, which contributed to her destruction. The San Francisco production was a  a co-production with English National Opera, under the guiding hand of director Stewart Laing in his American debut, bringing the human and political world to life at the War Memorial Opera House.

Mary, great-niece of King Henry VIII of England and cousin to Elizabeth I, Queen of England, was performed by soprano Heidi Stober. As told by the opera, Mary lived and ruled alone, unprotected, as women of the time usually did not. Women were raised to believe they could not survive on their own. Stober sang with high energy, resilience, and force. Throughout the numerous conflicts that she faced — whether with foes or would-be lovers — she performed with strong vocal detail. Stober’s voice was vigorous and stirring, although Mary’s goal to maintain her throne and achieve her succession somewhat limited the character’s dramatic depth and variety.

In no way was Mary a free agent. Since agency to rule and to control was her prime necessity, almost every confrontation in the opera reiterated her determination to win by domination. Whether with Darnley, Riccio, her half-brother James, or Bothwell, Mary demanded help, insisted on support, and asserted that her needs trumped every one of theirs. She corrected, she ordered, she refused to submit even when opposed, and she was not afraid to use guile. Such was the Mary that Stober captured: a woman who managed some successful coups that, though not sustaining long-lasting success, inched her towards the achievement of her final goal. However, from an operatic viewpoint, this version of Mary contracted further characterization and variety of tone and subtlety. Her goal drove everything. This spirit of endless competition was narratively excellent but somewhat repetitious dramatically.

The opera raised many questions. Why Darnley? Why James? Most of all, why Bothwell? The terrible rape scene, with the people surrounding the pair, was particularly convincing because, thankfully, we could not see it directly. But what motivated Mary with each choice? Granted, when Musgrave wrote the libretto and score of the opera in the 1970s, the women’s movement was gaining attention and its key thrust was women asserting themselves — wisely or not. Stober certainly conveyed the point of Musgrave’s work, and we cheered her efforts. It was undoubtedly a challenge to keep such a character as Mary going entirely under one’s own steam, but Stober did an excellent job maintaining her vocal force. Mary remained an excellent forerunner for women coming to power, even if she was herself not a perfect role-model. “I am alone!” It could be the theme song of the whole opera. “I am alone — and yet, I did do it.” Musgrave herself, setting out to write opera and concerti and ballet among numerous and various works — and still continuing into her 98^th year — gives us more than a model of a living creative force. She heightens our own inspiration.

Motherhood was the other side of the coin. There are multiple stories concerning how Mary’s rash love-making with the wriggly Darnley conceived the future James VI of Scotland — a.k.a. James I of England, creator of the King James Bible in all its glorious English prose. In telling these stories, Stober explored the role of “mother.” This side of Mary, while distinctive, remained dramatically repetitive and was not effectively developed. That was not Stober’s fault, but it nevertheless felt forced.

Darnley, sung by tenor Christopher Sokolowski making his San Francisco Opera Debut, sang with luster and ringing tones. While his “inebriated” moments seemed a bit cliché, his singing maintained a lovely, luminous glow. Bothwell, sung by tenor Thomas Kinch, a current Adler fellow, was powerful and impressive. He conveyed force and magnetic power, making us wish that he did not come off as one of the “bad guys.” So too, baritone Thomas Mole, making his American debut, who sang with beauty and fine resonance throughout. Who wanted him to also be a selfish and greedy brother? His rich, lustrous tone, with its full range and color, enabled him to strike and sustain a moving line in the unfolding plot throughout. Standing with Mary on the platform, contesting her wish for continued power, was dramatically a high-wire act, while its sonority highlighted Mole’s rich vocal texture as well as passion and conviction. Baritone Hadleigh Adams sang David Riccio, Darnley’s lover and Mary’s balladeer, with good melodic contrast as well as appropriate melancholy.

Conductor Clelia Cafiero, making her American debut, led the dynamic score with gusto. Each of the instruments accented both the emotion of the moment while adding its own color and beauty – bassoon, horn, cello, harp, and viola, among many. Musgrave gave us the right balance of wincing and lyric, haunting and diabolic, lullaby and momentous. Cafiero made sure the story was the music as well as the action. Indeed, that was the opera’s key strength – the thorough integration of music, story, and emotion. There was no discussion here of “I didn’t like the music but the story was stirring,” or vice-versa. One remained the other just as in Mary’s now famous statement, “In the end is my beginning, in the beginning is my end.” This was the vital essence of both Mary’s story and Musgrave’s work.

The production kept the chorus – well-directed by San Francisco Chorus Director John Keene – and the physical set in the hands of Scotland’s people. Stewart Laing created a tented setting, established before “the curtain rose” while the audience filed in, in the style of second-hand clothing from the thrift shops of Fillmore Street 25 years ago. While it did not detract from the overall power of the opera, the choice of “everyday shabby” remained lackluster in the foreground. From the tent to the fence, the costumes, and the lighting, all were carefully thought-out to give a people-oriented perspective to the whole royal stigmata. Yet this downplayed any beauty intrinsic to the story itself, while the seductive power of royalty was deliberately minimized. The fencing, for instance, while effective as a narrative point, ultimately made the story too much an object to think about – past/present, here/now – and diffused some of the opera’s flames. But for San Francisco, Musgrave’s 1977 opera, “Mary, Queen of Scots,” filled our hearts and our ears with provocative music and a tableau of the human condition: once upon a time as today. Laurels are given for a notable performance.