Maria Stuarda; Anna Bolena – review

Kings, queens, tsars or pretenders: great leaders are the heroes and villains of opera but the art form is not a reliable way to learn history. If you put together all the works based on Tudor subjects, from those by Donizetti to Saint-Saëns to Britten, you soon run into Horrible Histories territory and some ("Cos we're Tudors, Britain's biggest feuders, And just like barracudas…").

Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, which opened in Cardiff last week as the second in WNO's Tudor trilogy, is a good example. An Italian composer set to music an episode in English history using a libretto based on a truncated version of an Italian translation – stick with it – of a play by a German who lived two centuries after the events described and made up the single pivotal plot twist. It's wise to check out other sources.

Donizetti did, however, have an unimpeachable starting point in Schiller, whose grand tragedy, first seen in 1800, penetrates to the heart of sovereignty, jealousy and enmity without being hidebound by fact. Two queens – Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots – play power games of heart and kingdom. Schiller gilded the action further by inventing a coup-de-théâtre scene in which the two women meet – which, as far as any knows, they never did.

It's ideal operatic fodder. Elizabeth has arranged to be out hunting in Fotheringhay, where Mary is imprisoned. (A little geographical latitude, or lassitude, must be allowed here: Fotheringhay is on the edge of the Fens, therefore not ideal for a chance encounter when you live in Windsor Castle.) Donizetti's score gallops furiously as the tension builds. Every cantering bar hints at hostility. You can almost feel the crisp air, the clouds of breath issuing from mouths of queen and mount, the crackling twigs underfoot as she approaches this dreadful showdown with her arch rival.

Or you would be able to if WNO's production, by Rudolf Frey, designed by Madeleine Boyd, had not taken place entirely in a sealed black box. Or, to be accurate, a box within a box, divided into two halves that were supposed to indicate the mirroring of Mary's and Elizabeth's lives and preoccupations.

Since the costumes were black too – tight leatherine bodices and full ballet-style skirts for the women which, though stylish, definitely did not flatter all, and overcoats which mixed Elizabethan and 19th-century detail for the men. Matthew Haskins's lighting design made handsome use of chiaroscuro but nothing could mitigate the sooty bleakness of it all.

This simple staging, if it did nothing at all for the opera, will certainly prove functional for the company's autumn tour of this mini-Donizetti season, a bold if reckless undertaking which deserves support for enterprise if not always, to use the popular word in this context, execution. There were many empty seats. Would one Tudor Donizetti a year have satisfied curiosity, instead of three at once? The bel canto style is a specialised taste and finding enough people to lap up all three will be a box-office headache. I hope to be proved wrong. Roberto Devereux follows in October.

Of the three, Maria Stuarda is the strongest. Choruses are spectacular, the drama robust even in this over-egged staging. The orchestration bursts with vivid detail especially, as so often with Donizetti, in the woodwind. The way the two women circle round each other emotionally makes compulsive viewing, even if the first half belongs more to the power-crazed Elizabeth, the second to the blowsy Mary. The WNO staging underlined the similarity between the two women, with Adina Nitescu explosive and coarsely robust as Elizabeth, and Judith Howarth coquettish and eventually magnanimous as the ill-fated Mary.

She wore a red plaid skirt – the kind worn by assistants in shops selling tartan – tacked up with a leather bustier that looked like a saddle. All she needed, in this crude reading, was a steed. By the end, condemned to death and awaiting execution, she had turned into a Hillary Clinton lookalike with a big blond ponytail, chic, wet-look black coat and shiny black high heels, though why remains an enigma.

Howarth has a particular gift for expressing a character's humanity, even the less sympathetic such as Mary herself. The role has a series of stratospherically high notes – just a notch beneath yelling – which are spine-tingling when they work. Howarth has the experience and musicianship to know how far she can coax her voice and scored enough vocal triumphs to compensate for a few misses.

The bass Alastair Miles, whose sanguine authority is ever intact whatever role he plays, was the loyal Talbot, tenderly preparing Mary for the scaffold. Bruce Sledge sang Leicester eloquently but acted stiffly, perhaps appropriate given his dubious loyalties, divided between queens. Rebecca Afonwy-Jones was alert and sympathetic as Mary's companion. Graeme Jenkins, conducted with spirit and grace. It's a relief to be able to report that musical standards were high. Even if the production had its problems, whoever shouted "Rubbish!" as the curtain came down should have had his head chopped off.

Anna Bolena, which opened WNO's season the previous week (I attended the second performance), is more sprawling and shapeless but builds up to a compelling mad scene when Anne loses her reason. Set and costumes were the same with variations. Alessandro Talevi directed with clarity. The cast was outstanding: Faith Sherman expressed her anguish as the young musician, Smeton. Robert McPherson (Percy), Katharine Goeldner (Jane Seymour), with Alastair Miles, back on stage as an insinuating and bullying Henry VIII, were all good.

The Italian soprano Serena Farnocchia responded to the extreme demands of the title role – one vocal high-wire after another – with fire and energy. She deserved her ovation, as did the WNO chorus and orchestra and the conspicuously talented Daniele Rustioni, who won best newcomer in the 2013 International Opera awards. An elfin Italian steeped in the enormous traditions and nuance of this music, he conducted with an infectious feeling for the spirit of this music and hugged himself as the audience cheered.