Macbeth

Synopsis

Verdi's Macbeth is always a popular opera, with instantly appealing music and a familiar story taken from Shakespeare's play. The treacherous and scheming couple at its centre make for wonderful operatic villains - the type of strongly drawn characters that Verdi portrays in his music so well.

With Simon Keenlyside making his Royal Opera debut in the title role, and with Antonio Pappano, Music Director of the Royal Opera, conducting the opera, this is a revival with an extra thrill. Macbeth's 'dagger' soliloquy and Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene are just two of the play's famous moments that inspired Verdi to wonderfully inventive and atmospheric music. The heroic Macduff, a chorus of witches and the vivid apparition of the eight kings complete an opera that has the composer at his most theatrical.

Phyllida Lloyd's production, last presented by The Royal Opera in 2006, uses Verdi's 1865 revision, especially noted for Lady Macbeth's great aria 'La luce langue' and the wonderful Act IV opening chorus, and brings out the dark motivations of the Macbeth's and the light of justice for those they wrong.

Sung in Italian with English surtitles

Our Review:

25 May 2011

Early in this revival of Verdi’s Macbeth something extraordinary occurs.  Lady M, who has entered for the first time and muttered her way through a letter from her husband, turns her head and roars ‘Ambizioso spirito tu sei Macbetto’ with a soprano blast that pastes the audience to the walls. Liudmyla Monastyrska has arrived. Hers is a high-cholesterol  blow-out of a voice, full-throated and resplendent, and this calling-card moment is a vocal coup de théâtre.

As a dramatic interpreter, the Ukrainian soprano still has work to do. In the recent revival of Aida her rudimentary acting was unsubtle at best, embarrassing at worst; and little has changed here, with the most complex female character in all of Shakespeare reduced to a monochromatically angry fishwife. Monastyrska’s tendency to travel north of the notes is an even greater concern: there was a moment in the sleepwalking scene where she see...

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Latest User Review

F,Pyne - 31 May 2011:

Of course the murder of Duncan takes place off-stage Steve - that is the way Shakespeare wrote it. As Verdi tightens up the whole plot it would have been impudent to say the least had he shown the murder ON-stage. I went on the Bank Holiday Monday and was surprised how many empty seat there were (credit crunch or all away on holiday?). But it was an immensely enjoyable evening though I did wonder if it relied a little too much on knowing the play. Why does Macbeth kill Macduff's children? In the play it is left to his henchmen. Some of the witches stuff also left a lot to the imagination - where was the cauldron? These are minor points and not really important. But the main thrust of the opera was very well played and sung especially Banquo, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and, as usual, Pappano was brilliant. If you have not seen it - go!!...

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