VERDI: MACBETH - PREVIEW

Conductor  James Levine
Macbeth  Lado Ataneli
Banquo  John Relyea
Lady Macbeth  Maria Guleghina
Lady-in-waiting toLady Macbeth  Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs
A Servant of Macbeth  Richard Hobson
Duncan, King of Scotland  Raymond Renault
Malcolm, Duncan’s son  Russell Thomas
Macduff, Thane of Fife  Dimitri Pittas
Fleance, Banquo’s son  Adam Hauser Piñero
A murderer  Keith Miller
A herald  Joseph Turi
A doctor  James Courtney
A warrior  David Crawford
A bloody child  Ashley Emerson
A crowned child  Anne-Carolyn Bird

Act I
Scene 1 A battlefield
Scene 2 Macbeth’s castle

Act II
Scene 1 Macbeth’s castle
Scene 2 Outside the castle
Scene 3 The banquet hall in the castle

Act III
The banquet hall

Act IV
Scene 1 On the Scottish border
Scene 2 Macbeth’s castle
Scene 3 Birnam Wood


Act I
Scotland. Macbeth and Banquo, leaders of the Scottish army, meet a group of witches who prophesy the future. They address Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland, and tell Banquo that he will be the father of kings. The two men try to learn more, but the witches vanish. Messengers arrive with news that Duncan, the current king of Scotland, has made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. The first part of the witches’ prediction has come true.

In Macbeth’s castle, Lady Macbeth reads a letter from her husband telling her of the events that have just transpired. She resolves to follow her ambitions (“Vieni! t’affretta!”). A servant announces that Duncan will soon arrive at the castle, and when Macbeth enters, she tells him that they must kill the king. Duncan arrives. Macbeth has a vision of a dagger, then leaves to commit the murder. On his return, he tells his wife how the act has frightened him (“Fatal mia donna”), and she tells him that he needs more courage. They both leave as Banquo enters with Macduff, a nobleman, who discovers the murder. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth pretend to be horrified and join the others in condemning the murder.

Act II
Macbeth has become king. Duncan’s son, Malcolm, is suspected of having killed his father and has fled to England. Worried about the prophecy that Banquo’s children will rule, Macbeth and his wife now plan to kill him and his son, Fleance, as well. As Macbeth leaves to prepare the double murder, Lady Macbeth hopes that it will finally make the throne secure (“La luce langue”).

Outside the castle, assassins wait for Banquo, who appears with his son, warning him of strange forebodings (“Come dal ciel precipita”). Banquo is killed, but Fleance escapes.

Lady Macbeth welcomes the court to the banquet hall and sings a drinking song (“Si colmi il calice”), while Macbeth receives news that Banquo is dead and his son has escaped. About to take Banquo’s seat at the table, Macbeth has a terrifying vision of the dead man accusing him. His wife is unable to calm her unsettled husband, and the courtiers wonder about the king’s strange behaviour. Macduff vows to leave the country, which is now ruled by criminals.

Act III
The witches gather again, and Macbeth visits them, demanding more prophecies. Apparitions warn him to beware of Macduff and assure him that “no man of woman born” can harm him, and that he will be invincible until Birnam Wood marches on his castle. In another vision, he sees a procession of future kings, followed by Banquo. Horrified, Macbeth collapses. The witches disappear and his wife finds him. They resolve to kill Macduff and his family.

Act IV
On the Scottish border, Macduff has joined the refugees (Chorus: “Patria oppressa”). His wife and children have been killed (“Ah, la paterna mano”). Malcolm appears with British troops and leads them to invade Scotland.

Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking, haunted by the horrors of what she and her husband have done (“Una macchia”).

In another room in the castle, Macbeth awaits the arrival of his enemies. He realises that he will never live to a peaceful old age (“Pietà, rispetto, amore”). Messengers bring news that Lady Macbeth has died, and that Birnam Wood appears to be moving. English soldiers appear, camouflaged with its branches. Macduff confronts Macbeth and tells him that he was not born naturally but had a Caesarean birth. He kills Macbeth and proclaims Malcolm king of Scotland. 

Premiere: Teatro della Pergola, Florence, 1847;
revised version, Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, 1865
Verdi’s opera is a powerful musical interpretation of Shakespeare’s timeless drama of ambition and its personal cost. Raising questions of fate, superstition, guilt, and power, it marks an important step on the composer’s path from his more conventional earlier efforts to the integrated musical dramas of his mature years. Macbeth is different from many operas in other ways as well, including those by Verdi himself. Instead of the tenor–soprano love interest that forms the core of most romantic operas, Macbeth uses a baritone and dramatic soprano to depict a married couple whose relationship is dominated by the desire for power.

The Creators
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) is the composer of 28 operas, which premiered over a period of 54 years. His works continue to form the core of the international opera repertory, cherished equally for their unforgettable music and their humanity. His patient collaborator on many of his efforts during the 1840s and ’50s (including Ernani, Rigoletto, and La Traviata) was Francesco Maria Piave (1810–1876). Piave’s work is praised for its inherent musicality and dramatic effectiveness rather than for any literary brilliance of its own. Additional portions of the libretto for Macbeth were provided by Verdi’s friend Count Andrea Maffei (1798–1885), a cosmopolitan literary amateur who also wrote the libretto for Verdi’s I Masnadieri and introduced the work of many great foreign writers, including those of Shakespeare, to Italians. The 38 plays of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) have provided much excellent source material to opera composers over the years. But when the opera Macbeth premiered, Shakespeare was not well known in Italy and was considered to have been a daring choice.

The Setting
The historical Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích) was king of Alba from 1040 to his death in 1058, but Shakespeare departs so far from history in his play that the facts are of little concern. For this season’s new production of Macbeth, Adrian Noble has placed the action of the opera in a non-specific post-World War II Scotland. This is not the mythic land popular among Romantic artists (as in earlier operas such as Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor). This is a barbarous place in a constant state of warfare with only the slightest hint of civility.

The Music
The score of Macbeth features very little of the melodic abundance that made Verdi famous. In fact, the composer went out of his way to avoid making this score too pretty, insisting that the drama was not served by lyricism. The duet between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after Duncan’s murder, for example, is more about breathy suspense than standard operatic tuneful flow. (For the premiere performance Verdi famously rehearsed this duet an astounding 150 times with the leading singers so they would understand entirely what he was trying to express.) Lady Macbeth, as the true protagonist of the story, has the most commanding of the great solos, notably her first aria, “Vieni!, t’affretta!,” as she responds to Macbeth’s letter and sets her mind on a course of crime, and the eerie and intensely difficult “La luce langue,” partly sung, partly declaimed in Act II as the murder is committed offstage. Her famous Sleepwalking Scene in Act IV is a study of guilt unlike any other. The final phrase, rising up to a high D-flat, is to be sung with “a thread of voice,” according to Verdi’s directions in the score. Macbeth has solos, yet many of his most arresting moments are, appropriately, in response to the words and actions of others. His music varies from jaunty and imperious with the witches in Act I (represented in the opera by a three-part chorus) to madness in the Banquet Scene in Act II. Throughout the opera, the score makes as much of an effect in its striking details as in its grand gestures. The fading string chords that form a musical depiction of silence as Macbeth enters the room to murder Duncan in Act I and the weird wind orchestration for Macbeth’s vision of Banquo’s descendants in Act III (six clarinets, two oboes and bassoons, and one contrabassoon, all intended to be under the stage) are only two examples of the haunting individuality of this remarkable opera.

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