‘It’s set in our world but is also magical and supernatural’

Radical take on Mary and Elizabeth’s deadly rivalry pays off handsomely

THE world premiere of an opera is an event. When its creation has taken three years, and the creative team has been nurtured in Scotland for over a decade, doubly so.

However, the premiere of Anthropocene at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal on Thursday goes some way beyond even that.

It is composer Stuart MacRae’s fifth opera, a landmark few composers reach – certainly by their early 40s – and it is the fourth on which he has collaborated with writer Louise Welsh, which makes their partnership remarkable in the history of music-making in this neck of the woods.

Anthropocene is set in the tundra of Greenland, where a team of scientists become trapped in the ice, which itself has an identity that challenges our conception of the “age of humanity” of

Although the venue for their meetings has changed over the years, MacRae says that their working method has remained much the same since the start.

“The bigger the project gets, the more complicated the process, but the basic pattern is Louise and me sitting together and talking about ideas and building a synopsis of the piece. She then writes the libretto and gives it to me in chunks.

“As soon as I see something I know if I can set it or whether I need to ask for some changes. It is very collaborative, so I might ask for some dialogue to be made into an aria, or I’ll see an opportunity for a duet or a trio and suggest a reordering of the phrases to bring them together. And sometimes she’ll suggest these things herself.”

“We think about the narrative but about the characters too, because how they react is the story, and Stuart and I have to share a vision of who these people are,” says Welsh. “Then I have to go away and write it, and I send him chunks as they are done.

“We’ve developed a method of working over ten years, where he’ll either set to work on what he gets or he’ll come back and say, ‘Can we change this?’ It is rare I’ll say no, unless there is a very particular reason.

“And I mustn’t get stuck because it is like a little factory and if I stop, Stuart will be idle. There is a timetable and that is the wind beneath your wings.

“This is the most collaborative relationship I have in my working life and he is such a delight to work with. I feel very fortunate that he invited me to do this and that it worked out and we’re still doing it.”

The Inverness-born composer was first encouraged in his writing by James MacMillan, who was conducting the Highland Region Schools Orchestra in which young Macrae played flute, piccolo and piano. From the youth orchestra debuting his first orchestral work, MacRae’s trajectory

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (15) ****

TWO women besieged by plotters and critics but determined to hold on to power. As a certain politician might say,

REMIND you of anyone?

One can imagine both Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon finding a lot that is pertinent in Josie Rourke’s determinedly modern drama.

Not modern in the sense that everyone wears jeans and jumpers. Heaven forbid. Rourke’s day job is artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse in London, and she puts her eye for staging to sumptuous use in recreating the 16th-century courts of Mary and Elizabeth (the film is Bafta-nominated for hair and make-up and costume design).

Where Rourke’s drama is of the here and now is in its feminist retelling of Mary’s story, in particular the way it places the blame for her downfall on misogyny. This is a #MeToo Mary Queen of Scots.

As for how Scotland comes across, it looks magnificent, but politically we appear a right shower, a mob straight outta Game of Thrones who love fighting and copulating in equal measure. Decide for yourself the accuracy of that.

Saoirse Ronan plays Mary (the role taken by Vanessa Redgrave in 1971) as a budding flower of Scotland, brimming with determination that Elizabeth shall name her as successor. It is not long till she experiences the wrath of John Knox (David Tennant, fulminating magnificently in a Hagrid-style beard). “We have a scourge upon the land. It is worse than pestilence, it is a woman with a crown.”

With a screenplay by Beau Willimon, based on John Guy’s Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, the film is built around an event that did not happen: the meeting of Elizabeth and Mary. Though this might dismay purists, it works well as a plot driver. When the two finally get together it marks the point of no return for Mary, post the savage murder of David Rizzio, and post accusations of her adultery.

Ronan looks stunning in the role, her red hair glowing, that Celtic

Saoirse Ronan, playing Mary, Queen of Scots, leads from the front as tensions with Elizabeth heighten

MARY POPPINS RETURNS (U)

somewhat removed from the machinations of the government, allowing her secret lover Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) to effectively rule 18th-century Britain. While Sarah has the monarch’s ear, Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult) challenges her from his seat of power in Westminster, doing everything he can to protect state taxes, which are financing the war effort against France. In the midst of this battle of wits and words, Sarah’s lowly cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) arrives unceremoniously at court, seeking employment as a scullery maid. She recognises the key to bettering her positioning is winning the Queen’s fickle favour. Consequently Abigail launches a charm offensive to catch Anne’s eye and undermine Sarah’s influence. Once Sarah discovers her cousin’s Machiavellian scheme, she retaliates in venomous kind.

A spoonful of nostalgia – make that several heaped spoonfuls – helps the joy-infused medicine of Rob Marshall’s 1930s-set musical fantasy go down in the most delightful way. Based on the books by PL Travers, Mary Poppins Returns prescribes two hours of pure, sentiment-soaked escapism to banish the winter blues and jiggedy-jog our weary souls. It’s a lavishly staged carousel of whoop-inducing song and dance numbers that kicks up its polished heels in the face of cynicism and affectionately harks back to the 1964 Oscar-winning classic directed by Robert Stevenson. Emily Blunt is practically perfect in every way, making her entrance with a reverential nod to Julie Andrews – “Close your mouth, Michael. We are still not a codfish!” – as the London-born actress makes this iteration of the role her own with effortless efficiency.

Oceans rise and standards fall in Aquaman, a bloated origin story for the eponymous DC Comics superhero which capsizes in a tsunami of splashy digital effects and melodramatic storytelling. The scriptwriters crown a new king of Atlantis via a convoluted treasure hunt above and below cresting waves, where armies of armoured crocodiles and seahorses clash in a titanic battle to the thunderclap of composer Rupert Gregson-Williams’ bombastic score. Sweeping panoramas of otherworldly marine creatures locked in bloody combat owe a debt to The Lord of the Rings trilogy in their gargantuan scale and execution, but there is no emotional connection to two-dimensional characters in the midst of the melee. Jason Momoa flexes his muscles and pearly whites in the title role, imbuing his reluctant heir with flashes of rough charm and humour when he isn’t conversing with co-stars using his fists.Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe, sporting a fetching man bun, buoy throwaway supporting roles and refuse to drown in the relentless onslaught of special effects trickery. We are not so fortunate.